House of Sweets

One of my favourite designers at the moment is Henry Holland, and his brand House of Holland. I particularly like his 'Buzz Kill' collection for S/S 13 and within that the colourful almost tie dye, paint splattered pieces.

 

 

I really like the effect Henry has created in these pieces and I feel I could use something similar to reflect the different colours of sherbet, as it tends to mix together and create new blends of colour. The lollipop I'm using also has a swirl of bright colours, this could be interesting to try and recreate using colourful dyes. 

In Henry's 'Pre 2013' collection he also used a lot of coloured stripes. When I saw this I instantly thought I could link this to the coloured stripes on some of the sweets and the rock, as well as the pink and white striped paper bag.

 

 

I think seeing as stripes are very on trend for this S/S 13, and they can be drawn straight from the sweets themselves, they are definitely another area I could look into when developing my sample work.

For more House of Holland visit their website here: 

www.houseofholland.co.uk 

Candyfornia Dreams

Whilst trying to think of artists and designers I could look at and use as inspiration for this project. A Katy Perry song then came on my iPod and suddenly it dawned on me. Her. I've always been a fan of Katy's music and style and after seeing her Part Of Me movie and seeing her live in 2011, I'd become aware of how she uses sweets, cakes and other candies to create 'Candyfornia' on stage. The genius behind her costume designs though is model turned stylist/designer Johnny Wujek. Katy is known for wearing quirky food related outfits, and she works closely with Johnny when he's coming up with new costume designs, in order to always make a statement. 

Johnny always aims to be innovative and push the boundaries when designing costumes. For example the peppermints on this dress (above) would spin when she came on stage, creating a exciting and clever effect. 

He also has experimented with various other sweet themed costumes, all which I think look amazing and would like to draw inspiration from when creating my samples and my final piece. 

Johnny Wujek uses masses of embellishment, simplistic printing on latex and even 3D cakes and sweets amongst other techniques to create stunning stage costumes; all inspired by the simple, yet yummy, theme of sweets and cakes. I personally love his work and feel like I could definitely take inspiration from it when creating my samples, perhaps trying some of his techniques out for myself.

Pick 'n' Mix

Today I thought I'd take photos of all the sweets I'd bought to use for my project. I laid them out using a pink and white striped paper bag as the background, to give more of an old fashioned look to the photos. I then began taking photos, trying to get different shots of the different angles of the sweets so to fully en-capture their detail.

Grouping the sweets together, gives the appearance of a pick and mix bag of sweets and highlights the vast variety of different colours and textures in the sweets. 

 

I tried to pick sweets with vibrant colours and patterns, as well as interesting textures. Once I've drawn, painted them (etc) I hope I'll be able to transfer these colours, patterns and textures into my sample work to create some unique and delicious looking samples.

Good Ol' Sweet Shops

Yesterday I decided to take a trip to the nearby seaside town of Llandudno on the hunt to find some traditional sweets to use for my project. I'm lucky to live nearby here as they have the cutest little sweet shop, Grumpy's Sweet Shop, where they had such a massive variety of sweets - it was hard to limit myself to a few bags! 

 

 

 

The owners of the shop were lovely and let me take as many photos of the sweets as I needed. Take a look at their website here! 

https://www.grumpyssweetshop.com/

I also took a walk along the prom to the pier where I found a little shop selling Rock, lollipops and a few other sweet things. 

Lastly I walked into the town centre and to my surprise found even more sweets in a shop inside the Victoria Shopping Centre.

My trip to these sweet shops has certainly been inspiring and I've found lots of sweets that I can put to use in my project! I can't wait to start drawing them and putting my initial visual sheet together!

Food For Thought

Today I got my exam paper for Art Textiles, after some thought I decided to choose the Food question and focus mainly on sweets and perhaps cakes.

With this in mind I've been researching different artists and designers that I can use for inspiration for my final exam project.

I searched on etsy and found these 3D felt cakes from LeBrie Rich, I think the intricate detail used in creating these cute little slices is something I can bring to my work.














Using these as inspiration, I think I will try and incorporate some felt into my work. It is particularly effective when giving the cakes more shape and I feel I could do the same with my sweets.
These slices look delicious and are all made from 100% needle threaded wool, looking almost good enough to eat!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/PenFelt?ref=seller_info