Vending Machine Series: Choices

With half of 2018 gone, I wish I could go back to April. I was totally focused, centered, and excited while working feverishly on my largest, most complex vending machine painting.  I called this Choices, for those of us who would need time to ponder what to buy from this fanciful machine.

Vending Machine Series: Choices, by Beverly Shipko, Oil and acrylic, 30 x 30 inches, Work in process

I spent a full week sketching the composition. First I decided on the scale and proportions of the painting, and the products to include in each row. 

Then I played with the position of each item. Would they lean left, right or stand up straight? For example, take the corn. I experimented with a few packs and took photos to get some answers. As you can see, I went with a single ear of corn with lots of silk.

Lastly, there was the pricing. I wanted to make people think about how they make food choices when faced with alternatives. I wondered: Would people ever select healthier vegetables from a vending machine? Would bargain hungers buy veggies because are larger and perceived as a good value compared to smaller, more expensive sweets?

Once I had the initial sketch, I started painting the black background using Liquitex Acrylic Heavy Body paint. I kept thinning the paint with water to avoid having little patches of black paint clump on the surface.

I commandeered the kitchen table so I could paint on a flat surface and better control my brush strokes and avoid dripping paint. I began with the sides so they could dry first, and I could easily move the painting.

Once in the kitchen, I turned the canvas to different angles to check the paint coverage. Even though the canvas came pre-primed, it frequently took 3-4 acrylic coats to cover those irritating little white spots peeking through the textured canvas.

I was so glad to be using quick-drying acrylic paint (15 minutes vs. many days for oils)! It was the best way to go to keep the background smooth, like the metal of the machines, without having to wait between painting sessions.

Since it was easier to make compositional changes at this stage, I spent an extra day or so painting in the numbers with white acrylic paint. As the black background progressed, I moved the canvas back and forth between the flat kitchen table and the vertical refrigerator – to step back and get a better idea of how the finished piece would look

I knew from past paintings that if you can get the black background right at the beginning, the rest of the painting falls into place. It almost paints itself! (OK, not quite…)

Now I was ready to move Choices back to my easel permanently and paint the products in vibrant colors using oils. I think oil paint has a richer look and distinctive texture that helps the products pop off the black acrylic background. I worked from the top down to minimize the possibility of smudging. 

The top row of chips was coming along pretty well, as were the bananas. Then I struggled with making the asparagus and broccoli distinctive, and went to the grocery store for guidance – a frequent occurrence with this painting. With two green vegetables next to each other, I had to differentiate them better using color, shadow, and texture.


I expected the carrots to be easier given their orange color, but that wasn’t the case. This was my first time painting carrots (and most other veggies), and they didn’t look convincing until I added significant texture. And similar to the green vegetables, I wanted to make the yellow banana color distinctive from the corn. Again, texture played a big role in the solution.


Finally, the veggies were finished and I cranked my easel higher so I could paint the bottom row of sweets without hunching over. I love my crackable easel!


Choices was by far the most ambitious undertaking so far in this vending series. I had painted chips before, but this painting included only 6 chip bags. The Choices composition has 5 bags, 5 vegetables and 10 candy bars – with 20 complicated logos.

“America’s Favorite Vending Chips” by Beverly Shipko, Oil painting on canvas, 20 x 20 inches

I had painted candy before too, but only 5 bars – not 10.

“Iconic Vending Candies” by Beverly Shipko, 10 x 20 inches, Oil on canvas

Last year, I even slipped in a single piece of broccoli. 

Beverly Shipko, Vending Machine Series: Super Foods II, Oil and acrylic, 11 x 14 inches

However, I had never tried them all together as I did in Choices.  When I showed this painting to a few people, they volunteered that they can see themselves standing in front of the vending machine trying to figure out what to buy. They related themselves to other indecisive people, often analytical people, weighing the pros and cons of the different eating experiences, and their relative prices. One of the neighborhood kids looked at Choices, and surprised me by picking broccoli as his favorite item! You never know…          

My frustration right now is that this painting is unfinished, and I can’t focus on it at the moment. However, since attending the Met Breur’s inaugural exhibit Unfinished, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

When I do complete this, you’ll be the first to know!

Icons of the Candy World

I am proud to show you my first painting of 2016, America’s Favorite Candy Bars: Vending Machine.

It’s also the first painting of my own personal art challenge to kick off the new year (which you can read about here.) The idea was to push myself during the month of January, yet give myself the flexibility to spend as much (or as little) time as I need on each painting.

"Iconic Vending Candies" by Beverly Shipko, 10 x 20 inches, Oil on canvas

“America’s Favorite Candy Bars: Vending Machine” painting by Beverly Shipko, 10 x 20 inches, Oil on canvas

America’s Favorite Candy Bars: Vending Machine is a direct descendant of my first small 5 x 7 inch Vending Machine painting from the recent September 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge. It’s also a nod to my former advertising days on the M&M Mars account at DMMB in Manhattan – and the countless competitive analyses I did on these 5 brands!

There are some major differences between the two works. At 10 x 20 inches, this is much larger and took a week (vs. one day) simply to apply the paint, not including sketch time. It’s more finely painted, mirroring the smoothness of the candy wrappers.

With longer proportions, the composition includes 5 candy bars (vs. 4). It’s painted on canvas rather than wood, a smooth surface that I missed when painting the sharp edged logos.

This is the original photo I took of the vending machine at the White Plains, NY train station.

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Unexpectedly, I practically ran into it (literally) in my rush to catch a train to Grand Central Station in Manhattan. Having practiced my photo skills previously on many local vending machines, I quickly whipped out my camera (a Pavlovian response), took a bunch of shots, and still made my train.

I started with this detailed sketch to establish the structure of the painting and emphasize the rhymic quality of the rings.

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Since there were so many colors and many “moving parts”, I tried a new approach. Here I am in the kitchen painting logos in water-based acrylic paint. My original intent was to let the acrylic paint show through the oil, but I wasn’t happy with the richness of the colors in comparison to oil.

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Eventually I repainted everything in oil, which worked out well. It was much easier the second time around, and those annoying little white spots from the textured canvas were already covered and not poking through. Hurrah!

After playing with various permutations of yellow ochres for the Twix Bar, I went to A.I. Friedman to buy my first tube of metallic oil paint.

As a former Twix Cookie Bar Account Executive, I had to get the color right! Then I went back to painting numbers and prices, a time consuming endeavor requiring a lot of patience and soothing music.

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One evening when Laura was home for the holidays, she took some photos for this post. When she told me not to laugh, this is what happened.


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I was nearly finished. The next day I turned the painting on its side to make refinements to the logos and descriptions, a good idea that gave me much more control.

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Perhaps I’m just a glutton for punishment, but I’m already working on another painting with more logos, hopefully as iconic as these.

Can you can guess the subject? Let me know what your first thought is. What is iconic to me may not be to you.

Thank you – and come back soon to see the next work in the series.