If there's one person who knows how to make decorative gourds, it's Ray Villafane. He's known all over the world for his absolutely incredible pumpkin sculptures. In this video tutorial, he shares tips and tricks on how to carve a pumpkin into a one-eyed Jack-o-lantern using an ice cream scoop, a potato, a carrot, and a few fairly common tools. — Read the rest

Come Saturday, September 22, master pumpkin carver Ray Villafane will be teaching a class on subtractive sculpturing techniques so you can decorate your own gourds for the season. It happens at The Butter End Cakery in Garden, California from 9 AM to 6 PM. — Read the rest

Artist Ray Villafane carves incredible pumpkins and has posted a HOWTO on sculpting your own.

From his site:

If you have yet to try and carve a pumpkin in a 3-D manner you need to. Its fun and everybody enjoys a cool pumpkin.

Ray Villafane carved this pumpkin lord at the New York Botanical Gardens, where it was captured on still and video.

Inhabitat has a great gallery of photos of sculptor Ray Villafane's zombies carved out of the world's largest pumpkin at the New York Botanical Garden:

Last week, we brought you news that the world's largest pumpkin was going under the knife, and now we have actual photos of the carving in action!

I am a stone oatmeal fiend. I get up extra early every morning just to make my special oatmeal for the family. Also, I love pumpkins. So when I saw this recipe for cooking oatmeal inside a sugar pumpkin, with optional kid-involvement, I began to dribble and drool copiously. — Read the rest

A couple of years ago, I posted about the pumpkin carving mastery of Ray Villafane. Ray just emailed to tell me that he'll be on the Food Network show "Challenge" next week, October 26, at 8pm EST, competing for $10k cash. — Read the rest