It Was Fun, But I'm Not Doing It Again!

The final assignment in Draw It Like It's Hot! -- Koosje Koene's online course in food drawing -- was to put together a recipe and submit it to They Draw And Cook, a website that describe itself as "Recipes illustrated by artists from around the world". And indeed, that's what it is.

I never imagined that I would agonize so much and for so long over such a simple order, but I did, and later I will give all the gory details, but for now I will just show you what I came up with in the end, and submitted to They Draw and Cook:

Click to enlarge.

Even though I cheated ever so slightly on the image proportions, my submission was accepted, and here is the proof: http://www.theydrawandcook.com/recipes/pickled-jalapeno-peppers-by-gina-bisaillon

For me, the best thing that came out of this project--several good things, really--among them:

1. I stuck it to the end, and finished the drawing. For this I have to thank Tommy Kane (see my previous entry about this and the Sketchbook Skool course); I kept hearing his voice in my head, saying "Finish the drawing!";

2. The picture of the jar turned out really nice, and in fact, because the whole thing is a collage, I will detach it and keep it as a small painting (the jar part is 3" x 3");

Watercolour and colour pencil on Arches hot press paper. Click to enlarge.

3. Although I used a photo of a jar as a model for the container, and I did cut a carrot to make sure I had the pattern right, everything else about that project came out of my imagination. Although this may not seem like such a feat to you, it's a breakthrough for me.

4. I learned to use all my different versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements to clean up a picture, and best of all, to stitch several parts of an image to create a panorama. You pretty well have to acquire this ability in order to submit a recipe to They Draw And Cook because most scanners will not accept anything longer than letter-size, and TDAC requires submissions to measure 16.66 inches wide and 6.25 inches high (5000 by 1875 pixels)!

This means that now I don't have to worry about photographing an object, a room, a landscape with a special app that I only have on my iPad! Instead, I can just use my regular camera--yay!

The They Draw And Cook website is a very successful project, but to tell the truth, even though most artists I know are pretty good cooks (as for me, I'm a retired chef and my recipe is one I actually use), if I'm going to look for a recipe I will first of all think of one from someone who is first a cook, then an artist maybe, but not the other way around!

Progress Report

Hey, I've been taking art classes and drawing daily for a couple of months now, and guess what? Either I'm getting better, or feeling more confident, but I think I'm improving.

A few examples.

#1. The assignment (from Koosje Koene's Draw it Like it's Hot!) was to combine some food and some lettering in preparation for the big final one, which is to draw a recipe well enough to submit to They Draw And Cook, a fun recipe website for artists and artists-to-be.

I drew the jalapeño freehand, from memory and directly in watercolour. I was shocked at how well it turned out. The lettering is based on the font called "curlz" that came with my system. It's one of my favourites, and I like the way it matches the curl of the pepper's stem. It got a bit crowded towards the edge of the page, on the right, but it was only an exercise, so I left it.

Watercolour on Strathmore Mixed Media 500 Series Sketchbook

#2. I drew this other chili pepper as a colour pencil and stamping exercise. Koosje calls this style "messy" and it sure is, but there is a charm about it, as a contrast with such a carefully drawn subject, but it would also go well with a cartoony style subject, I'm sure.

Colour pencil and ink on Strathmore Mixed Media Series 500 Sketchbook

(Yes, my "final exam" recipe will have something to do with chili peppers.)

#3. Meanwhile, I wanted to test the format for They Draw And Cook, so I created this spread for a typical Mexican drink.

Can you tell that I miss Mexico? (I lived there for 20+ years.)

Watercolour, watercolour pencil and ink on Arches cold press paper

What I learned from this sketch is I should draw lines with a ruler first, or risk everything being crooked like here, and hours of work could be wasted if this were my actual submission! Otherwise, I think it worked quite well.*

More importantly, I know what I would change if I were to re-do it.

Strike that! More importantly, I had fun doing all of these (and others not so worthy of publication).

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* And next time I won't forget to check the recipe itself: on this one, I forgot the sweetener! (In case you want to make it, just add sweetener to taste, be it agave nectar honey, or even sugar.)

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