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Design Illustration

A Colorful Series of Sugar Skulls Appear on New USPS Stamps Designed by Luis Fitch

Images © USPS, all rights reserved. Designed by Luis Fitch.

The United States Postal Service has issued a set of colorful postage stamps that celebrate Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), an annual holiday celebrated in Mexico and beyond on the first two days of November. The vibrant stamps depict a family of four calaveras (sugar skulls) designed by Minneapolis-based Chicano artist and designer Luis Fitch who has been obsessed with postage stamps since a young age.

A chance encounter near a train exit by the National Mexican Art Museum in Chicago lead to the creation of the stamps:

Every year, the day before his birthday, [Fitch] writes a list of things he wants to achieve, asking the universe. In October 2018, he remembered his old dream, designing a stamp, and made it number one, the slot for his most difficult and unrealistic goal.

The next day, the director of the stamp design program called.

He had seen the single poster Fitch wheat-pasted—on a whim, while waiting for his son—near the train exit for the National Mexican Art Museum in Chicago. And then he had gone to the museum, where twelve of Fitch’s posters were included in an exhibition on the Day of the Dead. This was just the style he was looking for, he said.

Fitch’s stamp designs incorporate multiple visual motifs traditionally used during the holiday including lit candles meant to guide deceased loved ones on their annual return journey, and cempazuchitles (marigolds), the most popular Día de los Muertos flower. Each of the four stamps depicts a different family member in the form of a sugar skull: a father with a hat and mustache, a child donning a hair bow, a curly-haired mother, and another child.

The stamps are now available in multiple formats at the USPS. (via Hyperallergic)

Art Food

A Life-Sized Human Skull Sculpted from Raspberry Flavored Sugar by Joseph Marr

Joseph Marr (some artworks nsfw) is an Australian multi-media artist based in Berlin known for his anatomically perfect sugar constructions of the human body that explore issues of desire and mortality. Last year for an organ donor charity called Live Life Give Life, a special art exhibition was organized by the Skull Appreciate Society titled Celebrabis Vitae where artist were invited to create skull-themed artworks. Marr’s contribution to the macabrely tongue-in-cheek event was this life-size translucent skull made from edible raspberry-flavored sugar.

Marr explains on his website that sugar only melts at a dangerously hot temperature of 366.8°F (186°C), and then cools rapidly once the heat source is removed, giving him only the slightest window to work with the maleable goo. “It’s a sensory overload, the smell, the colour, the heat and the honey like movement… it’s sharp like glass and smooth like marble and at the same time rough like concrete. Unpredictable.”

This year’s campaign organized by the Skull Appreciation Society is called the Day of the Living.

Craft Food

Realistic Animal Lollipops and Sugar Sculptures by ‘Amezaiku’ Artisan Shinri Tezuka

Ever had a hankering to taste a slippery goldfish or a wriggling tadpole? Now you’re in luck thanks to a new candy shop in Tokyo called Ameshin that offers traditional Japanese amezaiku, a form of artisinal candy making that dates back to the 8th century when the edible objects were offered at temples or given as gifts. The lollipops and other confectionary beasts are made by the shop’s owner, 26-year-old Shinri Tezuka, from a mixture of starch and sugary syrup (somewhat like taffy) that results in a translucent, almost glasslike candy. Tezuka shares more of his latest creations on the Ameshin website and Facebook page. (via Spoon & Tamago)

Art Food

Colorful Psychedelic Installations of Sugar and Candy by Pip & Pop

“I saw a dream like this” at Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide 2013. Photos by Andre Castellucci and Pip & Pop

Australian artist Tanya Schultz creates immersive wonderlands using the sweetest materials: colorful sugar and candy. But along with the hundreds of pounds of sugar, the miniature worlds, which are reminiscent of mythological lands made from food, often incorporate as many ingredients as there are colors. Working under the pseudonym Pip & Pop, Schultz uses everything from glitter and pipe cleaners to beads and figurines to create her psychedelic installations, which have been exhibited all around the world.

Pip and Pop began as a duo in 2007 but since 2011 Schultz has been working alone, or sometimes collaborating with other artist or creative companies, to create her elaborate installations. Check out what she’s been up to recently and allow yourself to be transported to imaginary worlds where sugar rains from the sky and streets are paved with candies. (via Cross Connect)

“I saw a dream like this” at Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide 2013. Photos by Andre Castellucci and Pip & Pop

“Through a hole in the mountain” at MT Kurashiki, Japan 2014. Photos by Keizo Kioku

“Through a hole in the mountain” at MT Kurashiki, Japan 2014. Photos by Keizo Kioku

“Candy Lab” at Mediamatic, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2014. Photos by Willem Velthoven and Pip & Pop

“Candy Lab” at Mediamatic, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2014. Photos by Willem Velthoven and Pip & Pop

“Candy Lab” at Mediamatic, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2014. Photos by Willem Velthoven and Pip & Pop

Craft Food

Handmade Candy: Watch as Giant Blobs of Melted Sugar are Embedded with Tiny Designs

This video from La Confiserie CandyLabs in Montreal demonstrates the labor-intensive process of rolling traditional hard candy. Each design starts with colored and flavored strips of heated sugar which are precisely rolled together into an increasingly large log-like shape. Despite reaching a final diameter of nearly 6″, the form is then stretched impossibly thin to create hundreds of pieces of tiny hard candies. From start to finish the entire process takes about three hours, during which the candy (and candy maker) never stop moving for more than a few seconds. You can see more of their candy designs over on Facebook. (via Neatorama)

Food Illustration

Cookies Too Beautiful to Eat by Pastry Chef Amber Spiegel

New York-based pastry chef Amber Spiegel has taken the artistry of cookie decoration to an entirely new level, creating edible objects that legions of online commenters profess “guilt” for wanting to consume, but not because of calories. The amount of time I would spend finding a recipe, mixing, completely ruining the first batch and trying again but actually paying attention this time, is the same amount of time Spiegel devotes to decorating a single cookie—about 45 minutes. Her attention to detail has turned cookie decorating into a full-time career as she films her own cookie decorating videos and travels the world teaching others her techniques. See much more over on YouTube. (via Sploid)