Pumpkin inspired art

My husband came home from the farmer's market on Saturday with four cute little pumpkins.I liked the way these three sat up on the front porch bench with the praying mantis sculpture behind them so I took a picture.
There is something about the color first... shades of orange against the brown bench, the pop of lime green tree behind it creating depth, the hard lines of the wooden bench against the roundness of the pumpkins. The crescent shaped lines on the pumpkins repeat the curves themselves. The stems even curve with strong lines created with shadow.
See?
Art in the simple every day life, that's what excites me.
I got out my oil pastels, texture "rubbings" plates, some plain muslin, my foamcore as a palette, and went to the porch where I see this vista...

I can see this from the kitchen window too.
and this...

I love a full round container of mums this time of year!
And got busy...

First I sketched out pumpkin shapes to fill the fabric, probably a fat quarter. Just the pumpkins, I'll worry about the filler later.

Chanel your inner 5 year old.
Yellow first, as it's the glow or highlight and lightest color.

then I placed the web rubbing plate under the first pumpkin and went over the top with orange and red pastels. I tried a different plate under each pumpkin.

Blending the orange, creating more color by going over it again, then going over with brick red and blending. Some green and purple mooshed in.

I used the plates to rub in some green, a spider web, the sky...overlapping the colors to blend.
And used this plate to draw on the letters. It needs to cure for about 24 hours, then be ironed with a hot iron and pressing sheet of fabric. Then it's ready to quilt and finish.

It's so pretty in person... come see!

I kind of cut off the leaves done along the bottom but you get the picture. I think it will look great with lots of threads and a strong black binding to frame it. I wonder if you think it looks too simple or child like???

The thing is, I had fun making it. It's from my heart and hands, I'm using my art supplies, and it'll be pretty.
What more can you ask of an hour? That's how long this took. Hope you are inspired by the fall colors to try some drawing and or painting.