Illustrated Recipes: Making Delicious Art

You eat with your eyes first and nowhere is that more evident than in Melanie Chadwick’s illustrations. Melanie’s a British illustrator who specializes in food and maps, both of which she brings to life through the playful use of color and lines. Her clients include Cornish Seasalt, Foodimentary, Ferment Magazine, American Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic, among others.

In this course, learn how to create an illustrated food recipe using a mix of analog and digital techniques. Discover ways to create textures with ink and paint, use hand lettering to give your illustration personality, draw your shapes to life, and finally use Adobe illustrator to color and combine all your artwork to create a freshly illustrated recipe.

Start by finding out a little bit more about Melanie and her creative journey. She introduces herself and the work she creates and then shares with you the people, places, and projects that have inspired and influenced her in her professional career.

Start by preparing a dish that will become the inspiration for the recipe that you will illustrate.

Begin to draw your recipe with ink, creating textures with paint, and writing hand lettering. Melanie shows you how to scan them all into Photoshop and prepare them to use in Illustrator.

Once you finish drawing, Melanie shows you how to combine all the analog textures and drawings with digital techniques to create the final piece.

Finish by learning how to print your work, explore ways to share your pieces, and other ways in which you can be inspired to keep drawing food.

Create your own illustrated recipe by combining analog and digital techniques.

Anyone who wants to experiment, students looking to add original work to their portfolio, professionals looking for new ways to combine analog techniques with their digital process using Adobe Illustrator, and those who want to further explore the software.

You’ll need basic Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop skills.

As for materials, you’ll need black ink, acrylic paint, a range of brushes and items to create textures with, tracing paper, drawing paper, a sketchbook, pencils, and pens. For the digital side, you’ll need a computer, a scanner, and the aforementioned software.