#candy | Beverly Shipko, Artist

Anatomy of a Series

April 18, 2017 by Beverly

Working in a series is often more complex than you might think.

Take my candy vending series, for example. On a whim, I decided to add a panel with the largest piece of broccoli I have ever painted – almost 2 feet tall. Here it is before I painted in the vending machine rings.

Since I wanted it to mesh with the rest of the series, I put it up on the mantle to compare shading, color and size of the dark rings going any further. The mantle ended up doing double duty as an easel.

This worked for a while as long as I was painting near the bottom. Eventually I got the kitchen step stool out.

Here I am looking happy – right before I got black paint on my newly painted fireplace mantel… Now I know why artists keep so many easels in their loft studios.

I’ll have to look for a better strategy if I want to keep the pristine look of my newly painted studio, which you can check out this coming weekend.

Here’s the finished painting.

Vending Machine Broccoli

It fits in very well with the rest of the series visually. Maybe a little paint on the mantel is a small price to pay.

One thing is certain: The addition of the broccoli sure does make me think differently about the whole series. It will be interesting to hear what people have to say about it.

What do you think? Feedback is much appreciated.

Day 30. Super Foods

February 1, 2017 by Beverly

What’s your first thought when you look at this? What would you name this painting?

“Super Foods” by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradled wood panel, 5 x 7 inches

Seriously, I would love to hear from you. So please jot down your initial thoughts about this image before you read the rest of this blog and you’re biased by my perspective.

Of course, I’m sensitized to vending images since I’ve painted quite a few, such as Icons of the Chip World and Icons of the Candy World. Then there’s my single candy bar vending series of five 20 x 10 inch paintings – so far.

And to think these paintings were inspired by my first vending machine painting during the September 2015 Challenge. If you read the original blog post about the process, you’ll see how difficult the first one was and how conflicted I felt about using so much black. I wrote about my lessons learned from that long, frustrating day. I’ve come a long way.

Did I ever mention that my husband Jay’s first marketing job was in the Food Service Division of Kraft General Foods, where he worked on… vending? Then he went to Pepsi and where he was in charge of several vending initiatives.

Back to the painting itself. Super Foods is a working title. At first I was just going to call this Broccoli, setting up different expectations. Then I tried include the word vending. Webmaster Laura came up with More Green Makes Cents. Very clever but not me.

I wanted to capture the conflicting emotions a person might feel when confronted by these vending choices in real life. How would you feel? Maybe:

Disgust at the thought of eating broccoli at all.
Guilt at choosing candy over healthy food.
Giddiness at the absurdity of it all.
Happiness at saving 25¢ by passing up sugary candy in favor of a healthy super food, which no kid would do in their right mind (unless they’re a vegetarian or never had candy in their life!).

Last year I came across a poorly stocked vending machine and took photos of the empty rows. I used one as my base. Then I bought a stalk of broccoli, took more photos, and made a little collage – which goes to show how low tech I am. Luckily I prepared everything in December since this was time consuming.

I began with a detailed drawing, eliminated the white labels, and decided on a broccoli price. (Is price an indicator of quality here?) Then I painted the background black.

The masonite board on my easel looked a little different this time. It included larger broccoli shots and my first vending painting as reference materials.

Good thing I saved this painting until the last day. I suspected it was a 2 day painting. Here’s where I stood at the end of yesterday (with an eye doctor’s appointment! No dilation after all).

Today I got a late start since I had a haircut in the morning (my lady is taking a 3 week vacation). Real life is now officially interfering with my painting life. The M&Ms wrapper took a long time with all the detail and variety of colors (translation: lots of brush cleaning to keep the colors clean). I earned my dinner break.

There were little kinks along the way, like the Twix metallic paint dried unexpectedly fast while I was eating, so I had to repaint areas. Getting the rings right was hard since they were so thin. A moment of unsteadiness would turn into 20 minutes of repairing a misstep.

While some of you may have been expecting me to end the Challenge with a gooey cake, this choice feels right to me. In a way, I came full circle. Yet I feel like Super Foods opened up potential new conceptual avenues to explore, which is one of my objectives for this Challenge.

Certainly Super Foods moves you away from the nostalgia of an Oreo Cookie. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Thoughts?

Tomorrow I’ll be putting together a collage of all 30 Challenge paintings. Hope you stop by to see it. It’s almost a piece of artwork in its own right.

My January Personal Challenge Collage

January 31, 2016 by Beverly

To mark the closing of my own personal challenge, here’s a collage summarizing this month’s accomplishments.

Doing my own version of the 30 Painting in 30 Days Challenge gave me an opportunity to focus on compositions I had been thinking about painting, but hesitating doing.

In December, I had no idea how to approach January. I only knew it would be flexible with the goal of hunkering down to paint, without worrying about the quantity of paintings or blog posts.

In the end, I painted 27 of the 30 days, opting for larger, more detailed works. There were actually 11 paintings within paintings, taking about 2 days each. Here’s a photo to help you get a better sense of the relative scale of each composition.

I first discovered vending machines (see my first vending painting) with their iconically packaged products during the September Challenge, and decided to run with it here.

Why these particular products, you may ask? I think it’s partially because they are semi-autobiographical and there’s an emotional attachment. My husband Jay worked at Pepsi, the parent company of the Frito Lay, which manufactures of all the chips products from Doritos to Cheetos. As you may know, I worked on Twix from M&M Mars.

You can read more about the process in previous posts (America’s Favorite Chips, America’s Favorite Candies, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups)

The rest of January was spent chasing pantry moths, going to the dentist (had a string of bad luck), and taking in special New York City events like tidying guru Marie Kondo’s talk at Japan Society introducing her new Spark Joy book (feeling another blog coming on).

In the past week, I took time off to visit the Art and Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory, the Picasso Sculpture show at MOMA (Marie would not be happy with all the photos I took!), and yesterday’s Michigan vs. Penn State basketball game at Madison Square Garden (Michigan won – Go Blue!).

I wasn’t sure how I was going to end this post, except to say there are more vending paintings in my future. Then this morning I discovered a surprising and totally unexpected blog post on my site, called Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup: A Tribute, from my daughter, self-proclaimed Laura “Webmaster” Sloofman.

Laura wrote a very cute entry (read it twice already) with lots of photos showing how she and her friend Sarah spent Saturday night painting. The girls were inspired by my Reese’s painting, which they projected on a TV screen, a techie idea worthy of two researchers turned artists for the evening. They did a great job on their own paintings, which you can see here. (Maybe Laura and I have another career sponsoring paint nights?!$)

Reading Laura’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup: A Tribute post definitely sparked joy, which Marie Kondo would heartily approve. What a fitting close to this January, 2016 challenge – and a fitting beginning to a creative year

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup

January 30, 2016 by Beverly

I just had to rip open this package and paint America’s iconic #1 candy, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

“Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup” painting by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradled wood panel, 8 x 10 inches

That’s what happens after looking at unopened vending machine candy for a few weeks.

This painting marks my return to wood panels after working on canvas for a while, quite a change. Canvas moves while wood is rock solid, requiring a lighter touch. Paint glides on wood since it’s smooth. It also glides off at the slightest touch, sometimes a scary thought as you’re close to finishing.

My initial concept using a double Reese’s package didn’t work at the photography stage. Neither did a single pack with a bite taken out of the chocolate. I ended up with a single Reese’s, in tact, coming out of the wrapper, similar to a small Reese’s painting from the 2015 Challenge, but different in feeling and proportion.

After taking many photos with various light sources, I made a composite of two photos, which you can see here. I know, I know, I could have done this in Photoshop (one day…). In fact, it was much easier to just whip out a pair of scissors and tape the two images together.

You would have thought I would have learned from experience. First, I forgot to velcro the wood panel to the masonite so it would sit solidly on the easel.

Second, I knew the logo process would be easier by starting in the middle of the logo with the yellow, and working outward. But no, I decided to start with the logo outline. Why? Bad idea.

It’s funny how something just gets stuck in your brain. When I re-read my old blog post which describes my history with Reese’s, I did the same thing last time. Maybe I just wanted to see quick results.

This was supposed to be a relatively quick painting and take 2+ days. However, on the second day I was eating breakfast and broke a tooth. So much for painting. I ended up at the dentist for several hours while he made a temporary crown (my second in a month, not good).

The next day, I painted the chocolate disk, a very strong shape. I struggled with the shadows, which were rather blue during the early stages (and cost me an extra day) but more dramatic. Maybe I miss the drama a bit in the final version. Do you?

I like the painting, but can’t help wondering what it would look like in a square format with a rip right through the logo… As a former brand manger, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Next time.

After working on this painting, I ordered a few long horizontal wood panels online in atypical shapes so I can try a row of vending candy bars on wood.

In the meantime, I sketched some single vending bars on canvas using a vertical format. Quite a change. To be continued…

Day 29. Mini Tootsie Roll with Bag

October 8, 2015 by Beverly

I seemed to be hooked on candy.

And just maybe Halloween is top-of-mind from the pumpkin decorations that Bonnie already put up.

“Mini Tootsie Roll with Bag” by Beverly Shipko, Oil painting on cradled wood panel, 5 x 7 inches

Whatever the reason, this was truly a rewarding but demanding painting that took a a few days. After working for several hours, I decided not to rush this since it had a lot of potential.

I wanted to revisit little Tootsie Rolls with it’s bag (that says Midgees on it, which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue). Using a camera as my digital sketchbook, I took 25 photos with the bag before settling on this composition (reminding me of the dramatic angles in 19th century Japanese woodcuts).

It took a while to come to grips with the different scale between the bag and the Tootsie Rolls, and find a dynamic composition using this atypically shaped candy (rather static and awkward from this painter’s perspective).

Less was more in this painting. I settled on a single Tootsie Roll, eliminating both wrapped and unwrapped ones ion various stages of being consumed.

I went right to the sketch, skipping the toned underpainting, and started with the bag – not surprising since I like use the darks to establish the structure. The above photo shows where I was at the end of the first day of painting.

Thanks again to Ed Price, my Northwestern business school buddy, who first planted the seed of painting mini Tootsie Rolls, which weren’t on my radar.

I’m proud of the last two iconic candy paintings, the Day 28 Kit Kat followed by today’s Day 29 Mini-Tootsie Roll with Bag, which are drying together on my mantel. While both have a similar color palette, the approach for each is distinct. Do you have a favorite?

With Jay’s help, there will be a lot more open wrapper “research” around here as Halloween approaches. Photos of your own handiwork all always welcome.

I’m getting a sugar high just thinking about all this candy, so I need a break. Maybe it’s time to go back to painting something more healthy – and finish up Apples and Honey from Day 15, which in the sketch stage.

I’ll decide tomorrow. Until then.

Day 7 of 30 – Vending Machine

September 7, 2015 by Beverly

There are a lot of firsts in this painting.

This is my first vending machine painting, my first food related painting on a black background (a color I rarely), the first work where my subject is half-submerged in shadows – and my first unfinished painting for the Challenge.

“Vending Machine” by Beverly Shipko, Oil sketch on wood panel, 5 x 7 inches

Vending Machine is also the first wrapped candy painting of this Challenge, a potential series I have been thinking of about since I did a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup during the January Challenge. I’ve had a Twix Bar lying around since Halloween, which I intended to paint since it was my account at DMB&B Advertising in my previous life. You can read more about my sentimental attachment to the candy industry here.

The choice of subject was actually inspired by a detour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to a student show, where Jay and I saw a drawing of a whole vending machine. And that was the ahah! moment right before we moved on to the John Singer Sargent exhibit, our intended destination. Afterwards, the search for the right vending machine began. I never realized that all vending machines aren’t created equally. Jay found this one with the most iconic candy brands lined up all in a row, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Getting the initial sketch right was critical, so I studied many photos and actually packages, taking extra care setting up the structure and putting in the details.

I painted from the inside out, starting with the vibrant colors that brought the iconic logos to life, minimizing the chance of colors bleeding into one another. Then I put in the black rings, followed by the black background, which changes everything so it’s important not to wait too long.

There were so many details in those logos and wrappers that by mid-afternoon I was thinking maybe I bit off more than I could chew, that this was at least a 2-3 day painting, and I must have been crazy not to practice on a simpler vending machine painting with just one bar, like the Twix photo I was using as a reference. I even considered just doing a Twix drawing (which I used to call dinner during those late office nights) and just calling it a day.

But the 4-bar composition intrigued me from the moment I took the photos of our old office vending machine. The repetition of the circular wires holding the candies add a rhythm with their cast shadows and provide a unifying pattern – so I kept going. I drew on some lessons learned from my first Challenge:

Stay calm
Simplify the details
Focus on the net impression; don’t look at every crooked line
Plan a strategy,
Be bold not timid
Just hunker down to pull the painting off
Put aside your skepticism

This was one of the pivotal decisions I faced: Do I paint the bars as if they completely lit in the foreground, or stick to my original vision and put in shadows so they recede and are dramatically lit, which seemed to be more difficult than I had time for? I decided to go for the drama – and it’s drama that I got for the next few hours as I experimented with one color after another… after another…. for the shadows (while secretly wishing I had bought that metallic oil paint for the Twix wrapper.)

The question for all you artists out there: What would you have done? In retrospect, I was in a pretty good place at this point, but maybe didn’t know it. Perhaps I should have skipped the shadows or changed the background and the bottom strip colors to charcoal grey. I would appreciate the feedback.

Here’s where I was when I got up the next morning. The Reese’s was still muddy and the Twix was just sitting there.

I spent a few more hours experimenting with the shadows, and decided to call it a day since I was jeopardizing my next painting. At this point, the paint was too thick and wet, and I wasn’t adding any value.

I wish I had more time on this painting so I could have let it dry before reworking it right away (so what else is new), and kept the painting surface smoother. But then I wouldn’t have learned as much as I did about what I’m capable of under pressure (self-imposed, I admit) – something to keep in mind when I get my next commission. Full disclosure: I plan on trying this one again as a 2-day painting with a less severe background after the Challenge is over.

I’m proud of how I moved ahead and didn’t give up – and then wondered what would have happened. Bonnie would call this a learning experience. That’s what I’ll remember when I look at Vending Icons.

What do you see you looking at this one?