Miss Candy Twist...

h hello there! I hope everyone had a magical Holiday and super festive New Years celebration! We spent the entire month of December on maybe the biggest project of our lives, knee deep in crumbling wallpaper, crackly tiles, enamel paints and sawdust, finally collapsing in a heap of exhaustion well before midnight on New Years Eve, but waking up on the very first day of 2011 to the sun streaming in the window of our brand new 1920s bungalow, which I shall have to save for it's very own post!

I was able to sneak in a few bits of drawing here and there, the Screaming Mimis Holiday Ad Spectacular, par exemple! The Holiday ads are always a favorite to draw, we went with a Candyland theme this year:

Inspired, of course, by the sweet shops of yore, and my own addiction to old fashioned hard candies of all stripes, particularly of the seasonal variety:

My confectionery allegiances generally lie with either taffy pulled by hand in a pink striped facade on the tiny main street of a forgotten Victorian seaside town or dusty boiled sweets via faux frosting topped vernacular English storybook cottage a la Santa's Village:

But I do also adore the modern day apothecary aesthetic, good old fashioned sugar craftsmanship and frequent art collaborations of modern day avant candy lab Papabubble. Here are some of their handmade spiral lollipops available at Bergdorf's:

A collaboration with Barcelona based designers Sebastien Cordоliani and Frank Fontana exploring traditional Murano glass techniques as applied to sugar:


And a pretty epic exhibition by Erica Browne, wherein participants were asked to grow their own sugar crystals and then bring them to display in the stores windows:


Having had 'candy as art' on my to-do list for the past, oh, decade or so, I am, of course, very much obsessed and always make a mental note when I spot someone else using sugar as a medium in their work. Garden of Delight by Marieke van der Bruggen made the blog rounds a few years back but definitely warrants another mention:


And, last but not least, Elsa Hedberg's candy and sugar icing baubles, on display at Beyond the Valley via Style Bubble:


Ps. Peppermint swirl type courtesy of Jessica Hische at Daily Drop Cap.