Halloween is quickly approaching, bringing about the traditions of costumes, candy corn, haunted houses, and PUMKINS! One of my favorite Halloween traditions is pumpkin carving. It started out with a traditional jack-o-lantern featuring triangle eyes, nose and a buck-toothed smile. These days, people are getting very creative with producing their art on a pumpkin canvas. Though Broadway can connect to Halloween with its costumes, makeup and bewitching shows, I thought it would be cool to combine the two – pumpkin carving design ideas with a Broadway twist.
One pumpkin in particular has been making its mark on the Broadway Theater stage by transforming into a carriage to take Laura Osnes to the ball in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Ms. Osnes recently took to Instagram to share a pumpkin clock tower; she captioned the below photo with “The clock turns into a pumpkin at midnight, too!” This looks a little complex to recreate yourself, but feel free to go for the challenge.
If you want something a little more wild for your pumpkin, try the classic logo for Disney’s The Lion King. What I love about this one is the color – the orange and its shadow create a more realistic face. This one only uses one pumpkin and you can print out the easy-to-find design to practice yourself!
Designs range in complexity, but that doesn’t mean a simple pumpkin can’t be theatrical. Take this Phantom of the Opera design; it’s simple as it’s an outline to the iconic mask and only a few holes need to be made.
With these ideas sparking your imagination, you may be thinking, “How do I do that?” Well, you can design a pumpkin any way you’d like. You make a lid by cutting a circle around the top stem. Remove the stem so you can get inside and empty your pumpkin of the many seeds and “guts.” Next, take your design and measure it to your pumpkin. Pumpkins come in different shapes and sizes, so it’s wise to figure out what kind of canvas you have to work on. Next, I tape my printed design to the pumpkin and punch small holes along the outline (usually a pencil point will work). Next, I remove the paper design to reveal the dotted outline. You follow your lines and carve from there:
Those are just a few of the ideas that come to mind when I think of Broadway pumpkin designs. If you would like to see other designs for pumpkin carvings, including traditional jack-o-lanterns, Google images has thousands of pictures you can look at. Feel free to take your favorite show’s logo and photos and transform them to a fall-correlated canvas!
Photo via Broadway.com