Halloween Pumpkin from Steve's Sketchbook

Happy Halloween!

A Halloween pumpkin carved as a jack-o’-lantern is the latest entry from Steve’s Sketchbook. Just my way of keeping things festive around here.

Remember back when everyone would carve a pumpkin for Halloween and put it on their front porches or in a window for everyone to see? Some people still do that. But these days many people just carve pumpkins for contests.

And besides, if you put your pumpkin on your front porch, you might find it smashed in the street later on. That happened to us once, thanks to a bunch of pumpkin-smashing neighborhood hooligans.

I thought it would be fun to have a pumpkin that someone could not smash, except if they smashed their own computer or phone screen. So I drew this one. It would be a relatively simple design if you were to carve it. But I liked how he looks here. I did not want to go too over-the-top. Instead, I chose to draw it much like I would carve it, if this were a real pumpkin.

According to Wikipedia, jack-o’-lanterns are carved from pumpkins, turnips, or other root vegetables. Have you ever carved a turnip? I would love to see that!

Be Nice

Halloween is a time of trick-or-treating. But remember to be nice. I hope there are not too many mean-spirited tricks these days. Harmless gags are fun, but some things can be taken too far.

For example, having our pumpkin smashed was slightly hurtful. We had put some time into carving the pumpkin, and we might have wanted to keep it around for another day or two.

And then one year on Halloween, someone drove down our street with a baseball bat hitting mailboxes. That might have been fun for them, although I don’t know how, but it cost us a new mailbox. It was not the worst thing in the world, but it really wasn’t necessary. Hooligans. (Just because I wanted to type “hooligans” again.)

It is great to have fun, but sure to be mindful of others. Even on Halloween.

Bible Verse

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. - 1 John 1:5

About the Artwork

This was a fun, simple sketch. I created it in about an hour on a Sunday afternoon. It did help that I knew in my mind what I wanted to do, so that it was just a matter of getting it on to digital paper. I used Procreate for iPad, as usual.

In looking back at it, maybe I should not have used quite so heavy of a line around the pumpkin. I wanted it to be bold, but that might be a little too bold. I might try something different next time.

Here is a progression look, if you want to see how it came to be:

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