Oh Great Pumpkin

Emma carved two pumpkins yesterday evening while studying for end-of-term tests and completing assignments.  She is spending Halloween at a friend's house.

I like the way her Linus and Great Pumpkin turned out.  She also carved a Halloween owl.  She did both using patterns she found online.

In past years, we have carved some pretty intricate patterns on at least five pumpkins.  This year, we will just have three.  I find that I am losing my enthusiasm for Halloween as the girls grow older, not that it was ever my favourite occasion.  In Quebec, people go all out with Halloween decorations in their front yards.  I did most of my growing up years in Toronto and don't remember much more than a pumpkin outside of most homes.  Here, people create graveyards and elaborate wooden structures.  Lots of time and energy goes into it.

Chloé plans to carve a pumpkin in between when she arrives home from school and when she goes out trick-or-treating.  That's another difference between Toronto and here.  High school students go from door to door just like the little kids.  My rule is if they're polite and have made some effort with a costume (they're not just in street clothes holding a bag), I will give them candy.  We usually give out over 200 bags at our door.

I am working on some other images to put in my Etsy store.  It is slow, painstaking work scanning the paintings and then creating the print version in Photoshop.  I worked for a few hours on one image yesterday and had to redo everything today. It's all part of the learning curve but it can be tiring.

Have a safe and happy Halloween wherever you are.