As we all know, there is SOOOO much to see on the convention floor, especially at New York Comic Con.

For candy lovers like GiGi and I, it didn’t get much better than seeing the colorful banner of Jelly Belly Candy Company waving at us from booth #455

©Jelly Belly Candy Company

It may surprise you, although we hope it doesn’t, that Jelly Belly has several lines of geek themed brands currently on sale including Disney©, Harry Potter™ & Finding Dory

What took us by booth #455, other than a bag of scrumptious jelly beans was the chance to speak to the incredibly talented Kristen Cumings. In honor of the 75th Anniversary of Wonder Woman, she was going to be working on a special piece dedicated to our beloved Amazonian.

We caught up with Kristen on Day 1 of NYCC and took a few moments of her time to ask her a few questions and to take a look at how she starts her bean art projects. We got there pretty early and she was already deep into her work.

CC: Day 1 of New York Comic Con and we are here with jelly bean artist Kristen Cumings. Kristen, thank you so much for letting us stop by and ask you a few questions!

KC: Thank you!

CC: How long have you been creating with jelly beans?

KC: I’ve been doing this with Jelly Belly Candy Company since 2009.

CC: So, with Jelly Belly exclusively?

KC: Yes…yeah, they have actually had artists doing this off and on since the 1980’s, so they called me in 2009, I am a local artist to their international headquarters, and asked me if I wanted to try it because they wanted to start up the bean art program again.

CC: Do you have a ballpark estimate as to how many jelly beans it is going to take to complete this project?

KC: Yeah, actually, this is about 20sq feet and there are about 600 beans per sq ft, so there will be about 12,000 beans in it.

CC: Ok, GREAT! Thank you so much Kristen! We will be back on Sunday to see the finished product!

KC: Great! Thank you!!

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Before Kristen begins each section, she uses a spray adhesive to ensure the beans stay on the art. She credits practice (and patience) looking at how colors and shapes relate to each other in being able to create a piece that has movement and depth.

We did indeed visit booth #455, again, on the last day of NYCC. At this point, Kristen had spent about 30hrs on the piece…We though it was FANTASTIC!

Even though it looks nearly complete, Kristen confirmed it would still take her until the last hours of the convention (she had about 4 more left at the time of the above photo). It was a testament to how much detail goes into something like this.

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It was such a pleasure to meet Kristen! GiGi and I both agree that she did Wonder Woman proud!

More of her work can be found at http://kristencumings.com/gallery/

and don’t forget to check out Jelly Belly’s gallery here https://www.jellybelly.com/ArtGallery