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Meet Dazzling Dolly, the most gorgeous gourd in La Salle · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Meet dazzling Dolly, the most gorgeous Gordon LaSalle. Written by Emily Beebe.
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  This article is being read by an automated voice, brought to you
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  by Everlet. LaSalle artist John Kepman spent more than twenty hours turning
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  a craft pumpkin into Dazzling Dolly the Gorgeous Gourd. The pumpkin includes
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  Metal Flake blue eyes, a yard of sequins, a wig styled by
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  his friend, and not a drop of pink. However, the pumpkin almost
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  didn't get finished. Kettman, who has been painting pumpkin portraits since 2015,
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  wanted a break from politics. After creating a shelf of political figures
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  such as Donald Trump, Governor J.B. Pritzker, Darren Bailey and Kamala Harris,
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  he chose Dolly Parton who died August 25. I put everything I
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  got into her, he said. His first political gourd was a thirty
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  pound trump he hauled around and described as carrying a watermelon. He
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  met Trump while carrying the pumpkin of his, and then tried to
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  meet Hillary Clinton and Pritzker while carrying pumpkins he created of them.
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  About twenty pumpkins now fill a basement he plans to turn into
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  a little museum, he said, along with portraits painted on grains of
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  rice and an Aaron Rogers cheese head. This October almost stopped Ketman
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  from this artwork. Ketman had neck surgery october second. It went bad,
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  causing swelling, then infection. Days after his release he lost consciousness behind
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  the wheel on his way to Ottawa, and landed back in the
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  hospital, this time in Peoria, delivered by ambulance down I thirty nine.
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  At 3 30 a.m, unable to sleep, he started drawing the nurses
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  and CNAs who cared for him. He also studied side by side
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  photos of Parton and his pumpkin, making corrections in his head, and
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  when he finally got home and picked the pumpkin up, the inspiration
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  just came to him. Ketman does research about the people he paints
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  and it shows. He looked up Parton's eye colour and used metal
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  flake blue paint where the sun would catch it and Ketman also
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  learned Parton's favorite colors silver sparkles, white and yellow. You don't put
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  pink on Dolly Parton, he
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  said.
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  Dolly herself is a craft pumpkin, like most of the collection. Any
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  brush will work, any paint will work, he said. The talent comes
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  from the inside. The hardest part, he said, was making the pumpkin
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  look like Dolly instead of a pumpkin. It's probably one of my
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  better ones I've ever done, he said. Whether Dolly meets the public
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  in person, this Halloween is still up in the air, Ketman hasn't
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  decided whether to display her outside his home for Halloween, for now,
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  she lives at Ketman's home, waiting to be unveiled. I think that
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  would be kind of nice if people wanted to see Dolly, he
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  said. However, Ketman already knows where Dolly belongs. Dollywood would be the
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  ultimate place that she would belong, he said.