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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.