Candy Art

    Have you ever seen a mosaic of skittles and wondered how they do it? Well I'm going to explain how some people will do it in such a way that even someone that has never done an artistic project can make it look fantastic. First off you will need to find an image of a character that you want to make out of candy. I would recommend picking a character with only one or two colors for the first time so it's easy to make. For the first example we will use this image of Kirby.

Now you are probably wondering where to start with this project. The first thing you need to do is figure out what colors you are going to use for each part of the picture. Then the next question would be, where do I get the colors? Well the picture below will show the easiest colors to get quickly, and in large amounts.

Now to make it really easy to place skittles, I recommend printing of a diagram where you will be placing the skittles. When you have the image you want to do, open it up in any paint program. Then using the fill tool, make every part of the image white. This is to save ink, because you will need to print at a fairly large scale as mentioned below. Leave the borders and any other area that you would like to match colors up to. When you feel you have whited out all the areas you think it would be necessary, look at the print preview tab of your software. For an image to be easy to place skittles, you need to make it large enough so that a single skittle will fit on a borderline. If the image has very little borders or lines close together, you can print it off at a 3x3 page area and get away with it. This is another reason why the image you choose should be simple, because you might get overwhelmed by the size you need to print it off as. The Kirby image was done at a 3x4 page size because the dimensions would only show on a 2x2 printing, so it had to be enlarged for better detailing.

After you have printed off the image, you need to cut off the white strips off the edges, then tape the image together. I recommend using packaging tape because you will use a lot of it. Make sure every corner, and edges has a piece of tape on it so the paper does not start to curl upwards and move any pieces of candy you have already placed. After the image is all taped together similarly to the image to the left, begin placing your selected skittles, or M&M's. I recommend starting around details first, in this case the eyes, then filling in the rest of the image. This makes it easier to adjust the skittles than if you had filled in the rest first and need to remove a skittle that is completely encompassed by other skittles.

While doing the image, it is important to look at the whole picture and make sure the shades that you selected work for the color you want it to represent. For instance, we used both of the pink M&M's from the Valentine's day candy for the outline, and shading. If you don't want to wait until February to make this image, you can always go to a party city, and get specific color M&M's, though you won't necessarily need the black M&M's because if you look at the easy to obtain colors, the brown M&M is very close to black, and you can simply buy a large bag of M&M's and sort them out for a lot less money. When you think you have finished the details, and it looks fairly good. Take a picture and look at it through the smaller screen. Because it is smaller, you will notice it looks a lot closer to the image you started from. You will also notice small details that can be fixed before you are fully finished. After you can't see anymore problems take a final picture.

Now that you have a finished picture, and you send it to your friends saying how amazing this looks. What do you do with the skittles and M&M's? Well you can either eat them, or save them for another possible image. If you want to save them, simply get some zip lock containers and sort the skittles into each container. I would recommend investing in an airtight container as it could draw bugs if left out on its own.

Some Tips to Consider

• Always have skittles or M&M's out you can eat
• Never eat older M&M's
• If you want to munch on a skittle, eat a red or pink one, they are in every pack
• Have a friend help you, speeds it up and gives you something to talk about
• Never cool the skittles, or work with sweaty hands
• Don't leave the candy near the sun as it will fade the colors
• Always sort out the candy when you are done
• Try to find vectors of the image you want to do (a vector is an image that can be enlarged without distortion, thus making it good for printing at different sizes)
• Each skittle bag has a unique shade of green, so keep those sorted out per pack
• Try to do all images during the day for better ambient light

Some Inspirational Images

Sources
Original Kirby image taken from here ->http://chaodam.deviantart.com/art/Vector-Kirby-35423071
Skittle Images taken from here ->http://grudgeholder.deviantart.com/