Illustrated Recipe | Christmas Gingerbread
It simply wouldn't be Christmas without ginger bread biscuits.
This year I plan to bake a batch to gift to family, just in time for that important visit from Santa. I do love illustrating recipes, but I thought this time I wanted to draw something different. I decided to include the scene, where the baking is taking place. This brings together my love of drawing characters & food together in one artwork!
Here's a sneak peak into how I made it ...
The first step was create the main character, when I was happy with him I then figured out what the scene would be. I wanted it to have a cosy Christmas feel, so set the artwork in a little country kitchen. After the layout and scene was decided I worked on the colour palette. This can always be tricky, I knew that I wanted to have traditional Christmas colours of red & green but not too obvious. I was happy with how the palette turned out.
Next up was the recipe itself, I drew props that linked in with the style and feel of the main scene. When illustrating recipes its important to leave enough space for the recipe method, I have been guilty of overlooking this in past!! Lesson learned.
Now that I have the layout figured out, the fun can begin. I am passionate about hand drawn and hand painted craftsmanship, so I create all my artwork in a traditional way. Firstly I drew out the overall scene again, then I began to paint. It's important to be able to re draw a drawing over & over again & get the same likeness. Never become precious about a drawing. Being afraid to make adjustments to a drawing, is a sure way to kill any spark in it as you become so anxious and stiffen up when working on it. For this particular painting I used Goauche paints and colouring pencils.Now that I have the painting complete, I scan the artwork into Photoshop to make any tweaks. I don't have the greatest hand writing, calligraphy is not a strong point of mine, using my Wacom tablet I write the recipe method on to the artwork. This way I can re do any sloppy letters that I am sure to make!Hope that you've enjoyed this behind the scenes peak into my Christmas recipe.Why not use the recipe and bake some gingerbread?Linda x You may also be interested in: