ice carving secrets: turkey & pumpkins design
ice carving secrets: turkey & pumpkins design
Before I stared carving the turkey design from yesterday’s entry, I would often carve my turkey and pumpkins design when I got a request for a turkey. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a real turkey sitting on a pumpkin, but the elements work well together and the pumpkin offers a nice spot for a logo or message as you see in the photo above.
As with the regular turkey design, this sculpture requires about a block and a quarter of ice. And again, the piece of ice required for the tail is about 20”x20”x5”. However, this turkey has a much smaller body and there isn’t as much ice left over. This sculpture is quite a bit taller also and transporting this design to another site proved to be interesting the first few times, because the piece is awkward and top-heavy. Interestingly, the most stable position is to lay the sculpture down, resting on its tail. This only works though, if the tail is fairly substantial with a strong weld; and of course, lots of padding is used. Also, make sure when carving this piece that there is a strong connection between the turkey and the large pumpkin. Try to avoid taking much ice off the bottom of the sculpture and leave the pumpkins as substantial as possible.
Because of the top-heavy nature of this design, you must also make certain that the bottom of the base is flat and that the sculpture is extremely stable. You may want to use additional ice to carve a wide, flat base that the sculpture can be attached to during set up (a 20”x15”x4” slab would be appropriate) If there is ANY doubt as to the stability of the finished piece with a design like this, DO NOT set it up! An unstable ice sculpture can be extremely dangerous to anyone around the sculpture and it’s just not worth the risk!
If you would like to use this design or any other design on this site, please check the design usage guidelines. The design collection page lists designs on the site.



I’ve used this somewhat cartoonish version of the design to show to clients, but it wouldn’t work well for a template because of the angled viewpoint
turkey & pumpkins design
11/24/08
here is an old photo of a turkey and pumpkins sculpture that was done for a Sheraton Hotel in Albuquerque, NM, probably in 1997