I decided to make a knock-off of PumpkinRot’s famous scarecrow. This is what I ended up with.
I didn’t take many pictures of the process because I didn’t intend to do a how-to on it, but I was asked by several people if I had some instructions…. so…. here it is!
I started with a plastic cauldron and covered it just over halfway with aluminum foil. I taped the foil to the cauldron with masking tape. Then I used watered down wood glue and my *oh-so-handy* yellow pages to paper mache over the foil.
I think I put like 6 layers of paper/glue over the top half. When that was all dry, I used some heavy duty snips to cut it off. I taped it together where I had to cut it to get it off, then papered over that a couple of times.
Then I started on making the other half of the pumpkin using the same technique. I used some “slave labor” for this part.
When the second half was dry, I cut it off, taped it up, taped it to the other half and papered over it a couple of times. I drew the face I wanted on the pumpkin with a marker, and then cut it out with some snips. I made sure to cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin so I could access the inside of it. I papered a couple of layers INSIDE the pumpkin as well.
I took a 2 foot length of 14 guage wire and poked one end of the wire through the top of the pumpkin and bent it around a couple of times so it wouldn’t come out. Then I twisted some newspaper around it to make the stem. I used some wood glue and smeared it on and into the twists of the stem to keep it in place. After the glue was dry, I coated the entire pumkin with a couple of coats of liquid latex.
I used some paper towels to make the wrinkles and texture. I just painted the latex onto the paper towels with a brush on an old plate, and then draped the paper towel over the pumpkin and kind of wrinkled and squished it around until I got it how I wanted it. I used half sized sheets of paper towls, one ply.
When I was satisfied with the look, I coated the whole thing with another 2 layers of latex, inside and out. Then I used some black exterior house paint (love those Oooops specials!) and gave the inside two coats of paint, and the oustide one coat.
I used a cup of latex and some acrylic craft paints to get the orange color and painted it with 2 thin layers. The black paint still showed through, which looked pretty cool. Then I took some brown paint and painted the stem. I used some olive-greenish paint to drybrush on the stem, then drybrushed some black a little on the stem.
I drybrushed some dark brown all over the pumpkin to give it some texture and some of that good ol’ rotten look. And that’s it! All done til he gets a body.
