Create Your Own Edible Painting

Merry Christmas Eve! This is the last project before Christmas so enjoy. Paint a few of these while you’re baking other cookies for a little edible art.

Supplies Needed:

Sugar Cookie Dough
Rolling Pin
Parchment Paper
Cookie Cutter
Light Corn Syrup
Food Coloring
Paintbrushes
Small Cups

Bake your sugar cookies according the direction on the package. You can, instead, use your own recipe or buy undecorated sugar cookies already made from the grocery store. If you bake your own, let them cool completely before painting on them.

Pour some light corn syrup into several small cups. You’ll want about a teaspoon in each. Squeeze one drop of food coloring into each cup and stir to make your paints. To make the black color I just mixed one drop of each color (and two drops of red) to one of the cups. The other colors are standard food coloring colors.

Use a clean paintbrush, preferably one that has never been used, and paint your cooled sugar cookies. The paint is very sticky and you must wash the paintbrush in the sink between each color. For this reason, it would be useful to have a different paintbrush for each color.

Please note that the colors run together if you don’t wait for the paint to dry between each; however, the paint dries extremely slowly. I painted mine all in one sitting and I think they came out fine.


Also note that the Jackson Pollock inspired cookies are very messy to make. Place a cookie on a plate, set it in the sink, and then splatter paint like I did (shown in the picture below). Have a parent help you with this one.
Below are pictures of my cookie masterpieces, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright stained-glass windows, Jackson Pollock, and Piet Mondrian. I thought I had posted on Wright stained-glass but I guess not. So below the cookie, notice the inspiration.




I think they turned out quite nicely. Use any artist for inspiration or paint your own pictures using the fun recipe.

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The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett

I know I said I’d post on a topic related to yesterday’s post, the painting demonstration but I want to show you a specific picture that I can’t seem to find. Last week I had a computer crash and, while I am certain I have those pictures backed up somewhere, I’m sure where there are. So it will have to wait for another time.

It’s been awhile since I posted a book review and I have come across a novel, meant for ages 8-12, in which a Frank Lloyd Wright house is a character. Sounds pretty cool, huh? It’s called The Wright 3, by Blue Balliett, and is the sequel to Chasing Vermeer.

Robie House, a Wright-designed house in Chicago, Illinois, is being threatened with demolition. Petra, Calder, and Tommy must learn to get along as a trio and use their diverse talents to save to house. But they aren’t the only ones determined to save the Wright’s creations; Robie House itself is determined to fight back.

Balliett does an excellent job of providing details about Robie House and about Frank Lloyd Wright. I recommend, however, that you bookmark this page so you can look at the pictures of Robie House, shown below, as you read.

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Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, probably the most famous American architect, born in 1867. Wright wanted his buildings to rise naturally from the land that surrounded them, as you’ll see. His buildings are often low to the ground and comprised of straight lines forming geometrical patterns. They are not symmetrical. Remember the ideas of the de stijl movement in the Netherlands? Wright greatly influenced those artists and architects.

He began his architectural career in Oak Park, Illinois where he designed the Unity Temple and many homes. Since I have been to Oak Park and seen these buildings, they will be the main focus of this post.

The image above is Unity Temple. I visited during a hot summer day and was the only person in the building so I was allowed to wander as I pleased. It’s impossible to describe the feeling in that building but I’ll try. There is a spirituality but it is not like that found in most churches. It is not as dark inside because the walls are wood and the stained-glass windows are mostly clear with colored geometrical patterns. Steps can be found in each corner of the chapel and the building exists on three levels, though it feels like only one floor from which you can somehow float upward. Wright designed the pews and light fixtures, as well as the building itself and the stained-glass windows. Below is a picture of the interior.
The next few images come from the neighborhoods surrounding Unity Temple and are all Wright-designed homes. The first was Wright’s own home and studio when he lived in Illinois. When I visited, some work was being done to restore the front of the home but you should notice the sculptures above the door. Yep: designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. They’re called “The Bolders.”

One of the most recognized homes that Wright designed is Falling Water, shown below. Notice how the building seems to fit into the land perfectly. The river actually runs underneath part of the house. Much of the building, as you can see, is made from stones that match those found in the river and the beams are brown like trees that surround the house.
Finally, the last picture I’ll show you today is of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. It spirals out of the ground on the corner of a city block. There is no nature to be found here... or is there. When you step inside it is like entering a seashell. The green glass is the ceiling of the building and the spiraling ramps direct you through the building, beginning at the top and traveling downward.
I had originally planned to create a Wright-inspired ginger bread house as a project to tie-in to this article but last night on the Food Network someone built Falling Water and that convinced me of how difficult that project would really be. Still, you should check it out if you get a chance. The show will be replayed on Dec. 22 at 6:00pm and Dec. 23 at 3:00pm (Eastern Standard Time). It’s quite impressive.

As an interesting side note, Frank Lloyd Wright’s son, John Lloyd Wright, invented Lincoln Logs in 1918.

EDITED TO ADD: Create Your Own Edible Painting, includes a cookie inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's stained-glass designs

EDITED TO ADD: The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett, book review

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De Stijl

De Stijl (sounds like ‘duh style’) was an artistic movement in the Netherlands from 1917 to around 1928. Artists such as Piet Mondrian, who you’ll learn about tomorrow, wanted to simplify the subjects of their painting as much as possible until they were left with only lines and simple colors. They used only red, yellow, and blue, and black, white, and grey.

De Stijl was confined to the Netherlands because the country did not involve itself in World War I so the Dutch couldn’t leave the country during the war. The art produced in other countries still influenced the de stijl movement, though.

In this 1921 painting, entitled Composition, you can see the simple colors and lines. Notice how few black lines there are in this painting, yet how beautiful the effect.
These ideas were used not only in paintings, but in architecture as well. Look at this house, for instance, designed by Gerrit Rietveld. It is completely black and white with details in primary colors, and uses only rectangles formed by horizontal and vertical lines. The inside also uses simple lines. If you’ve ever seen a Frank Lloyd Wright designed building, you may be thinking that this house reminds you of his work. You’d be right to think that because Wright’s designs from the 1900s and 1910s influenced the later work of these Dutch architects. (You’ll learn about Wright next week.)

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