The Crafted Palette: The CANDY Shack

The inspiration for this piece came from an episode of "Sarah's Cottage", a series that follows designer Sarah Richardson as she designs her own cottage.

In the episode where she is decorating her kitchen, she came across a vintage GROCERY sign at a salvage store.
To view the episode click on the link and go to video named KITCHEN / DINING ROOM / LOUNGE episode #5 part 3, HGTV Sarah's Cottage Video

Now, the sign she found was originally dark but as you saw she ended up with a muted colour scheme to match her kitchen. I am not partial to the pale colour, but the idea was burned into my mind.

As you can see in the photo above, my colours are NOT muted at all. In fact, they are so vibrant that I feel like I have stepped into a cartoon world when I look at it!
DIMENSIONS
5 FEET LONG X 14" TALL X 3/4" THICK

MATERIALS
MDF board (medium density fiberboard)
Acrylic Paints
Acrylic Varathane (sealer)

Here is the first draft photo, all of my ideas came from it even though at first glance it seems quite plain.

At this point I began looking through my own reference library to investigate colour schemes, I found an old ad for chocolates that caught my eye. Take a look.

Then I began to do my homework.
Since the ad above contains chocolates, I decided to remain with the same subject and proceeded to find more images of vintage chocolates and candy.

Through my internet search, I came across quite a few things...some, I won't mention... but there is one website of note, take a look at Old Time Candy-Candy You Ate As A Kid.

Then, I began to think about that great show on T.V. when I was a kid called, "Little House On The Prairie"...and subsequently the Olsen's Mercantile popped into my mind.

Once I saw the beautiful glass jars in the second photo above I began to play around with my preliminary sketch...this is what I came up with.

After my weeks of internet homework, I came up with my definite candy list and then drew them into the equation. Here are 2 examples, the second is closer to the final piece.

Here is the candy list:

chocolate squares
gum balls
humbugs
strawberry swirl
lollipops
candy sticks
and of course we can't forget about the iconic whirly pops...I included 1 typical whirly pop, 1 pin wheel pop and my own creation which I call the flower power pop (which you will see in the finished piece)

I did debate however whether to include jelly-beans, black licorice and jaw breakers...I had heard my Mother speaking about the black licorice pipes she used to love and because of that I did consider it, but I didn't think they would stand out enough considering that the background on my original draft was black...(which I later decided to changed to blue)

So, once I was firm on the candy choices, I created small cardboard templates of the candy shapes, the jar lids as well as the jar labels. Take a look

Here is the original draft on the MDF board.

It didn't remain this way though as you will see, it was a strange piece...it just kept evolving as I painted.

As you can see above, I added the labels, I finished the faux wood design on the jar lids and changed the background to a vibrant blue...reminiscent of the chocolate ad from above.

NOTE: If you look at the first draft here with the black background you will notice that I had a lot more of the gum balls painted in...and in the photo above I have a label covering some of them. This created an almost see through label when I clear coated it because the red pigment always bleeds through. Also, I had experimented with the colour on my big CANDY text as well, I had them painted red and found that it wasn't exactly what I wanted so I painted them white over the red....well, when I clear coated them they turned a creamsicle orange, kind of cool. It was a happy accident and gives it a clearly old look.

I then finish painting in all of the candy.

So, at this point I also add a large red rectangle behind the word CANDY so that the eye is drawn to it.

Here you can see it.