But for an artist like Caroline Eriksson of Norway, gingerbread sculpting has gone next-level. Instead of adorable Christmas decorations, she uses gingerbread to sculpt veritable masterpieces, both naughty and nice. Check out some of her most ambitious works to date.
The Queen of Gingerbread Nightmares
Eriksson first started crafting artwork from gingerbread cookies in 2013. Since then, the artist has created a steady stream of ambitious works evocative of movie magic. Her cookie creations typically take five weeks to complete, although the projects keep expanding in scope. These represent a far cry from the traditional gingerbread houses she made as a child with her family. But even back then, Eriksson remembers wondering what she could really do with gingerbread. The results in adulthood have proven jaw-dropping.
It all began with a massive Optimus Prime that she made based on the Transformers movie for a gingerbread competition in 2013. She watched the movie for ideas and soon developed a strategy for designing the Transformer using simple inner forms to create the foundational structure. Then, she added layers to these basic structures, building details and embellishing the work. After securing first place with her artwork, the Optimus Prime cookie went viral in magazines and online, marking the beginning of a sweet career.
Eriksson’s Gingerbread Renaissance
Eriksson starts by choosing a subject for her gingerbread artwork and designing a 1:1 sketch that she references throughout the process. She uses this sketch to develop a wire structure that acts as the foundational support for the sculpture. This wire structure also helps her judge the proportions of the piece. From there, she begins layering gingerbread pieces onto the frame, using strategically placed melted sugar to hold it all together. But if you assume Eriksson relies on store-bought gingerbread, think again.
She bakes all of her own pieces, ensuring the material has the right texture and stiffness for each cinematic project. This also allows her to cut pieces with exacting care. The confectioner estimates each gingerbread project requires about 15 pounds of flour and 11 packs of sugar to complete.
Art Transcends Gingerbread
Besides Optimus Prime, Eriksson has engineered other ambitious and inspiring pieces. These include elaborate subjects such as Smaug the Dragon from The Hobbit and the Xenomorph from Alien. She’s also garnered plenty of attention for her arresting depictions of Darth Vader from Stars Wars and her life-sized rendition of Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy.
Although she whips up these incredible pieces in a mixing bowl, the finished products contain painstaking details and compelling textures. Her rigorous dedication to the process has ensured a steadily growing audience of fans obsessed with her attention to every scale, piece of armor, or spike in the recreation of movie fan favorites. One thing’s for sure: you’ll never look at Yuletide cookies the same way after getting a gander at her frightening and highly detailed Sci-Fi-inspired creations.
TAKE YOUR OWN STEP OUT OF THE BOX!
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By Engrid Barnett, contributor for Ripleys.com
STEP OUTSIDE OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE
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LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
