Phil Hansen Shows Us How to Tattoo A Banana In His New Book.

Tattoo A Banana, by multimedia artist Phil Hansen, is a simple and fun guide to creating art with anything at hand - like a piece of toast, your own fingerprints, or a stack of marshmallows - showing everyday creativity with unconventional techniques. Whether you want to jumpstart, rediscover or further your creativity, this book is great for anyone who wants to experiment with a variety of nontraditional creative processes.






You can pre-order the book now on amazon.



Once you tattoo a banana, print on marshmallows or make a Mona Lisa sugar cookie, you'll be curious about what else is possible.

Phil Hansen is a multimedia artist who works at the intersection of traditional visual art, pointillism, and offbeat techniques, using media that connect to the subject matter, such as karate chops, tricycle wheel imprints, burger grease, and worms. His work has been featured on the Discovery Channel, Oops TV England, Japanese TBS, Clips Mania Germany, CNN, CBS, Good Morning America, the Rachael Ray Show, Dr. Phil, and many other media venues. As a commercial artist, he has worked with clients that include Grammy’s, Skype, Diesel, Arby's, Merck, Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum, and dozens of other large and small companies.

For more creativity, visit tattooabanana.com.

Check out his art site: philinthecircle.com

When You Hunger For Modern Design. Baked Goods Almost Too Beautiful To Eat.

Modern Bite has transformed cookies, cupcakes and cakes into art you can eat. The Los Angeles Bakery combines the design talents of Greg Roth with the baking expertise of Daniel Shapiro resulting in some of the most beautiful and sophisticated desserts you've ever seen.



Flavor options, design options, custom versions and boxed assortments of their baked goods are available both locally and shipped via Fed Ex. If you are looking for a memorable way to satisfy both your eyes and stomachs, Modern Bite bakery is the place.



Their shortbread cookies come in the three design collections shown below or single versions of the nine beautiful options.





Also available are an array of eight gourmet cookies, ranging from classic Chocolate Chip to Tofu Peanut Pretzel Cookies.

Cupcakes are available in three different modern design versions with your choice of chocolate. vanilla or red velvet cake and your choice of chocolate or cream cheese frosting:


Fondant cakes for birthdays, holidays and any other occasion are available in beautiful modern designs or custom versions. Here are a few of my favorites:












Classic cakes include carrot, vanilla salted caramel, chocolate, red velvet, vanilla birthday cake and a dobosh torte.

all images and info courtesy of Modern Bite

MODERN BITE puts an innovative design spin on mouth-wateringly delicious desserts. With a focus on delectable taste and texture and impeccable detail and artistry, the Los Angeles-based bakery brings the highest caliber ingredients and individualized customer service to its uniquely styled baked treats.

Creations from the MODERN BITE kitchen are the culmination of its partners’ passions and backgrounds.

At age 14, Daniel Shapiro parlayed his love of baking into a small business making and selling cakes to restaurants in his native Montreal. After earning an MBA from The Wharton School, he dedicated over twenty years to the branding and marketing of renowned entertainment and lifestyle companies.

As MODERN BITE’s visual tastemaker, Greg Roth draws on his fine art and architecture studies at Brown University and the Southern California Institute of Architecture, as well as two decades of experience designing restaurants and private residences.


MODERN BITE

Cadbury Creates An Entirely Edible Chocolate Version Of Their Google + Page.

On Mar 26th, 2012 Cadbury UK built a 100% edible, chocolate version of their Google+ Page.


above image composite by laura sweet

The construction and details of the edible Google+ page is shown through the following photos.

First, layers of Cadbury Dream and Dairy Milk chocolate were applied to a base of Dairy Milk bars:






Edible inks were printed onto sugar paper to create detailed replicas of the Page’s buttons and photos of fans.





Pieces were adhered using liquid Dairy Milk as a kind of glue. Text was applied by hand with edible ink.







The company invited followers to chime in and watch live as the finishing touches were applied through a Google+ Hangout.






It lasted a week in their office but the +Google UK team finally gave in and devoured the finished page (shown shrinkwrapped below).

images courtesy of Cadbury UK's site and Facebook page.

Cadbury UK

Hungry For Art? Sandwiches As An Homage To Modern & Contemporary Artists.

above: The Piet Mondrian Sandwich by Brittany Powell

Brittany Powell's project, Sandwich Art, turns the classic sammy into interpretations of pieces by famous modern and contemporary artists. From Marcel Duchamp to Damian Hirst, cheese, lettuce and condiments are the medium and the bread is the canvas.

Finger Lickin' Landscapes. Photos of Edible Environments by Carl Warner.

Photographer Carl Warner creates miniature worlds crafted entirely of food, textiles or other objects and then photographs them. Today I want to share with you his Foodscapes, as he calls them. Meat mountains, broccoli trees, cabbage seas, chocolate rivers and cereal leaves are just some of the fun elements in the dioramas. Made with most things edible, the landscapes and buildings have obvious commercial applications, but some are just as appetizing to gaze upon. He even sells photographic prints of them (links to purchase the prints, a book and the new wall calendar are at the end of this post).

About creating his Foodscapes, Carl says:
The ‘Foodscapes’ are created in Carl’s London studio where they are built on top of a large purpose built triangular table top. The scenes are photographed in layers from foreground to background and sky as the process is very time consuming and so the food quickly wilts under the lights. Each element is then put together in post production to achieve the final image.

“Although I’m very hands on with my work, I do use model makers and food stylists to help me create the sets. I tend to start with a drawing which I sketch out in order to get the composition worked out, this acts as a blue print for the team to work to.”

Once the drawing is agreed upon, Carl then works out what each part of the scene will be made from, and working with his food stylist they together determine the best ingredients to work with in order to achieve his aims.

“I tend to draw a very conventional landscape using classic compositional techniques as I need to fool the viewer into thinking it is a real scene at first glance, it is the realisation that the scene is in fact made of food that brings a smile that brings a smile to the viewer, and for me that’s the best part”

Having worked for many years as a photographer bringing ideas to life for advertising agencies Carl became very experienced in lighting, and especially the recreation of natural looking light using a combination of tungsten and flash lighting equipment.

“I’ve always enjoyed the discipline of working in the studio, and the spontaneity of working outdoors in natural light, as you never know what you’re going to get. With my ‘Foodscapes’ I can now put together the knowledge of natural light with the control of recreating it in the studio in order to bring out the colours and textures as well as the beauty of a scene”

These images can take up to two or three days to build and photograph and then a couple of days retouching and fine tuning the images to blend all the elements together. Carl spends a lot of time planning each image before shooting in order to choose the best ingredients to replicate larger scale shapes and forms within nature, so he spends a lot of time staring at vegetables in supermarkets which makes him seem a little odd! However, he is careful to point out that finding the right shaped broccoli to use as a tree is an all important task.

“Although there is a fair amount of waste, there is a lot of food left over which is always shared out with the team, though most of the food used in the sets have either been super glued or pinned and none of this makes for good eating!”

About Carl:

Born in Liverpool, 1963 Carl has spent most of his life drawing and taking pictures. He has worked mainly in the advertising industry for the past twenty years, based at his London studio, and now lives with his long suffering wife and four children in the Kent countryside.




A book of his Food Landscapes was published last year and shows 'behind the scenes' pictures of Carl at work as well as descriptions in his own words of how they were inspired and created. And a new 2012 Wall Calendar featuring his Foodscapes is also available.



You can buy prints of some of his amazing Foodscapes here.

See all of his various types of photography at his website