I once had an art teacher that made us paint with everything but paint. Inspired by this experience, I tried to make a little piece of art using candy dipped in water.

Supplies

A bag of color coated candy (M&Ms, Skittles, Mentos……)

Water

Watercolor Paper (you need thick paper)

Pencil & Pen

Step 1: The Drawing

At first I made an overall sketch of the face and the layout. I did go for a portrait with a colorful candy splattered frame, but you can do pretty much anything.

Step 2: Place Your Candies

I then placed the candies around the frame to have a view of the colors, and after trying a few color combinations, chose a "candy like" gradient, from red to yellow.

Step 3: Paint With Your Candies

And now the fun part !

I tried several methods in order to transform candy into paint.

My first idea was to paint the paper with water, and then place the candies on top, but the colors blended a lot and the result was quite ugly.

I then decided to dip the candy in water and then place it on paper and was happy with the result. The pigment dissolved in water leaving nice spots of colors under 2min. When removing the candy, I splattered the paper with the remaining water on it.

I waited around 30 min between each color to avoid any blending.

Step 4: Finish Your Drawing

Finally, I waited for it to dry (around 2 hours) and finished the drawing with a black marker.

Be careful when you do this because the color won't dry completely and will stay a little sticky.

Step 5: Enjoy Your Piece of Art !

I really liked working with candy. I find it really interesting as a medium because you can use it in many ways, dipping it in water, rolling it on paper, smudging with it….etc It also gave me a good idea of the color composition before applying any final color.

Thanks for reading !

Don’t hesitate to share your version of this candy art, I’d love to see how you chose to use this medium.