The Great Pumpkin Adventure 2012: Geometric pumpkins

The Great Pumpkin Adventure 2012: Geometric pumpkins

I don’t know about you but I feel like Halloween 2012 has suddenly crept up on me! I guess this month in general has been a bit of a blur, but regardless, here we are- the first holiday of the Fall/Winter season! Woo hoo! Every year, I try to do some sort of Fall centerpiece or project for Halloween. The first one I blogged about was in 2008, and that one was basically just about keeping it simple and modern. In 2009 I started experimenting with spray paint and did my “pop” pumpkins. I didn’t really do much for 2010, just a little “nouveau western” vibe. Last year, I got a little more motivated and was loving drippy glazed mid century pottery and did a little creepy drippy greeny Halloweeny centerpiece too.

Anyway, this year I wanted to do something that could possibly carry through to Thanksgiving as well- So… out came the spray paint and on to the Great Pumpkin Adventure 2012! I had this idea to play around with geometric shapes, kind of inspired by the designs found on kilims.

I really wanted to figure out a way to play around with different color combinations. Over the years, I’ve learned that when using vibrant colors with spray paint, PRIMER is key. So I primed the pumpkins with a white primer. I then cut out triangle shapes out of that Blue painters tape. I chose the one that was for “delicate surfaces” because I didn’t want a tape that would pull off the paint. I’d like to say that it worked like a charm. Unfortunately, when I tested it out and pulled off the tape…
FAIL. It totally pulled off not only the base color, but also the primer. UGH.

So… what to do… I racked my brain to think about what I could use that would have enough tack to stick and mask out the shape, but not pull off the paint. I finally thought about Post-its! Post-It Brand has this version that has a larger “Full adhesive” sticky area.

This method seemed to work for the most part and I didn’t have too many paint-being-pulled-off incidents. It was still quite a lot of trial and error, but I think the main culprit was perhaps the primer I used. I’m suspecting that if I used a better spray primer, the color might not have pulled off the pumpkins so easily. I also found that matte colors worked better than semi-gloss. In the end however, I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. I had a blast playing with the different colors, mixing and matching odd neutrals with neon brights, and even metallics.

Anyway, I hope you all have a Happy Halloween!