"Pumpkins" -- oil on canvas -- 40x60" -- Margie Guyot

This was almost as hard to photograph as it was to paint! This image got cropped a bit. I use a little point and shoot digital to get my jollies with. I work from life, not from a photo. I only photograph things when they're finished.

These are the coolest pumpkins! All were grown locally, mostly at Bolt's Farm, on Atwood Road. We had them as decorations at Tapawingo this fall and my boss let me take them home. I knew I wanted to use them in a still life. I'll try planting the seeds next spring. I hope the deer leave them alone.

Everything in the painting was scavanged or haggled for. The table was from a resale shop. Finally -- a big table to put still lifes on! In the past I balanced a piece of drywall on cardboard boxes. The orange and beige tapestry I haggled for down in Peru some years ago. The deer antler came from a garage sale, as did the squirrel nutcracker. The ornate gold frame was from a resale shop and I found the wild turkey feathers out in the woods. Those prickly-looking doodads in the upper right corner are seedheads from cardoon flowers. The Mexican bat mask I haggled for down in Mexico when I was there last time, on a mushroom-hunting trip up in the volcano region, outside Mexico City. Ah, I love junk!

The one piece that inspired this whole painting was the orange plastic Jack-o-lantern Jell-O mold I got at the neighbor's potluck and give-away party! As soon as I saw it, I got goosebumps! When something gives me goosebumps, it's a sign I need to follow through with it.

Even the canvas itself was from a garage sale.