Get Creative This Halloween

With Pinterest and tumblr becoming more common and popular, it pushes the everyday person to want to take Halloween to the next level.  This means decorating the entire house instead of just the porch and front room, and only making Halloween themed food for every celebration, as well as only wearing homemade/DIY costumes.  These things are super hard to achieve, and somewhat unrealistic for the average person who isn’t amazingly artistic like everyone on Pinterest seems to be.

A new trend that has begun on Pinterest is to paint a pumpkin instead of carving one.  This trend is a great and easy idea that people of all ages and skill levels can easily achieve.  It allows you to be more creative if you want, but it’s not a necessity.  Both simple and complicated designs look great on a painted pumpkin.  And as a bonus, if you mess up then you can just repaint the entire pumpkin orange and start over instead of being stuck with it, like when carving.

Oddly shaped pumpkin I painted as a strawberry

Another bonus of painting pumpkins is that it allows you to get creative with the pumpkin you pick.  There is no longer only two options of short and fat or tall and skinny pumpkins because those are the only two that look good with a carving, now any size and shape of pumpkin works because you can use its shape to your advantage.  If you get a curved pumpkin you can make it look like a strawberry.  If you get a hourglass shaped pumpkin you can make it look like a skeleton head, or a triangle pumpkin can be a witches hat.  These are all also super cute and creative ideas that take little to no skill or time to achieve.

The only potential downside to painting a pumpkin instead of carving it is that you can’t put a candle in it to make it light up and be able to see it at night.  But that is easy to get around by putting several candles next to it or a lantern or really any light source, to be able to show off your pumpkin in the dark.  This means that there is no downside to painting a pumpkin instead of carving one.  Will follow the new trend this Halloween?

Reflection

This past school year has been one of great artistic inspiration. Whether it be the talent on campus, the world outside of school, or the spark within ourselves, there have been many opportunites to learn and grow as art-lovers. My experience has been one more from the outside world. The many great minds and talents within the world is truly astonishing. It has opened my eyes to all that can occur from turning a thought into an inventive action.

I encourage the musicians out there to keep creating. Your lyrics and tunes are transformative and can take listeners to another place.

I encourage the actors/actresses/thespians to continue inspiring viewers through you passion. You are the well-crafted tools to creating stories that sometimes are hard for us to see.

I encourage writers to continue exploring the great dreams that are in your heads and in this world, and continue writing it down for us readers to marvel at for years to come.

I encourage the photographers/painters/sculptors to continue transforming visions in you mind and visions of the world into tangible objects. Your work is living proof that greatness is in the eye of the beholder.

I encourage designers to continue to be amazing, for you give us art to walk around in, art to scroll through our computers on, art to get lost in our video games in.

I encourage the producers/advisors/experts/dreamers/consultants to keep supporting and helping the great art that comes across your way. You are the backbone to every movement and continue to push these creators to be their best.

This school year for Arts Ink has been great, and I will see you all soon to see where this upcoming year takes us.