Giant Ice Cream Cones

I started making giant food based sculptures on my patio in March, when the pandemic began. After I cleaned the house for a while, I had to make art again! I brought home some materials from my studio: paint, X-Acto knives, resin, my glue gun, and a huge sheet of foam insulation. I sketched out an ice cream bar shape on the insulation, cut out multiple layers of foam in that design, and then glued them together. I adapted an old yardstick to serve as the wooden handle, painted it, then resined it. Voila! An ice cream bar was created! The first one was 32"h x 14"w x 2"d. Once I figured out how best to make this wall mounted sculpture, I evolved to making a whole series of ice cream bars. This included a Chocolate Crunch, chocolate eclair, a rainbow of colored Creamsicles, and a giant ice cream sandwich - seven so far! I also made a giant pink frosted doughnut and a huge slice of chocolate cake on a plate with a fork.

Continuing the series on ice cream, I've most recently completed two ice cream cones. The latter being over five feet tall! I considered the options and easily decided that an upside down, melting ice cream cone would be a more unique design. It also offered the added benefit of being able to stand on it's own, making a stand unnecessary. I tried a variety of materials, including foam core board and cardboard to form the core of the ice cream cone. In the end, I settles on heavy-duty paper. A photographer in the building where my studio is, gave away a lot of his used rolls of colorful paper (used as photo backdrops) that had gotten dirty or dented. I formed the paper into a cone. then I designed it's exterior out of hand-crafted foam core board. Once that was glued onto the outside, I painted it to look like a cone and created the shadows that would be in the crevices using grey and brown paints. The next hurdle was creating the ice cream part of the design. I have been saving discarded Styrofoam from my neighbors recycling bins! I stacked, carved, and glued the Styrofoam until I finally produced the round scoop that would also be flattened at the base, since it was to appear like it had fallen and was melting! I painted it pink and added some sprinkles, which are actually teeny plastic beads. I covered the whole piece with resin and created a section of melted looking ice cream radiating out from the cone.

As soon as the pink cone was completed, I realized it wasn't big enough for my taste! I decided that this one needed to serve as a prototype and that I needed to make a bigger one. The second time I settled on a Drumstick design, the kind with a chocolate coating and chopped peanuts. I went about it the same way: creating an inner core of paper, I carved and painted foam core board then cut, layered, and glued Styrofoam for the ice cream section. I stuffed the cone with more Styrofoam and created chocolate colored paint "skins" to mimic the chocolate coating - acrylic paint mixed with a medium to form a flexible material to use once dried. It worked perfectly! I created the peanuts by chopping up more painted foam core board. I carved several sheets of foam core board to form the melted second of ice cream and painted it white and glued it beneath the ice cream cone. I covered the ice cream with two coats of resin, which acts as a sealant and hardener and also renders the whole design to become a delicious "ice cream".