Illustrated recipes has been a favorite way of creating for me now for a few years. Ever since I discovered They Draw And Cook, I realized I'm not the only crazy foodie-artist!
Doing illustrated recipes (even the ones I did quickly in my journal, to remind myself of recipes to cook) even resulted in commissioned work. This recipe for Zucchini Patties, ignited the design for a food truck, which I saw in action for the first time just last weekend!
The story behind it:
The guys who run
Mac'n'Cheez, they had this idea for their food truck/trailer but hadn't built it yet. They found my illustrations online and the patties recipe above, was exactly in the style they were looking for. They asked me if I could create their menus in that same style. Also, they were going to apply for festivals and fairs, but the trailer still needed to be built, so they didn't have any photos they could share for their applications. So they told me about their philosophy and what their trailer was going to look like. They didn't have a logo either. So I started sketching and doodling having fun and using my imagination, and came up with the drawing below.
They loved it so much, that they took that logo and had it made just like that, blinking lights and all.
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| photo by Mac'n'Cheez team |
Their classic Mac and Cheese dishes have 4 different toppings, and I created the menus for those, to eventually paint on the blackboards inside the trailer.
It's a rare and wonderful experience when work doesn't feel like work, because you're simply doing what you love.
When illustrating recipes, I'm simply doing what I love. Because I realize I'm not the only foodie out there, I developed the 4-week online workshop 'Draw It Like It's Hot'. It's starting This Monday, June 9 and we doodle food (=foodle), draw kitchen utensils and work our way towards illustrating our very own recipes.
Why don't you join us?
There will be videos, step-by-step instructions, drawing prompts, and much more!
Class starts June 9, runs for 4 weeks and costs only $69.
Click here to enroll today
Procrastination. The word alone is intruiging to me. I can hardly pronounce it correctly, and still, I know very well how to do it. Procrastinating I mean, not the pronouncing.
I know nobody who doesn't procrastinate.
Nobody. I think people who claim they never procrastinate on anything, are not being honest.
I think stopping by at the procrastination station is perfectly normal and healthy. Or well, at least I tell myself. I just did a very, very good job on folding the laundry. Instead of uploading stuff for one of my upcoming online classes. In fact, this blogpost is partly procrastination.
The upside: procrastinating on one thing, sometimes leads to something good on something else that you may loath doing if that's all you need to do: doing the dishes, painting a wall, rearrange your living room interior, do grocery shopping, scrubbing the bathroom floor.... Other times it's just sort of paralyzing, and you're spending way too much time browsing through Facebook feed, Instagram art or get buried deeper and deeper into Pinterest.
Now here's the kind of 'productive procrastination' that I really like: making a drawing while putting off doing a drawing. I was working on an illustration that I promised to make for a friend. She's getting married, and we wanted to give her something personal during her bachelorette day. Once I started working on the illustrated cocktail recipe for her, it felt great to be making something personal, but before starting, it just looked like a big mountain to climb, an assignment for which I actually really didn't have any time in my schedule.
Once I planned some after-dinner drawing time, I did some doodling and sketching, but then got so intrigued by drawing orange peels.... this is what happened:
That's what I mean: a fun result of procrastination behaviour, right?
In the end, I managed to finish my sketches and make an illustration. During a round of cocktails (of course!) we gave it to the bride-to be and she's very happy with it! She will hang it on the kitchen wall.
On April 28, my
4-week online workshop 'Draw It Like It's Hot' starts.
I wil show how to make stuff like the above, and much more!
It'll be great fun to work towards the final assignment along with your classmates: creating an illustrated recipe that will be published on the website theydrawandcook.com!
It's only
$69 to enroll, so what are you waiting for?
Click here to read more and join.
