Hello people! In view of the global circumstances and inspired by so many artists and people sharing and caring for everyone who has to remain at home, I decided to finish this post that I initially started back in August last year. Due to the amount of workload, I had to pause but now felt the most appropriate time to publish something that could potentially inspire others. This post is based on my painting of a pain d’épices (French for “spices bread”) in which I illustrated the actual cake, its metal tin and a wooden spoon. I had the idea to go more in-depth into my own painting process. I realized that a crucial part of creating a realistic piece was getting the different textures right. Particularly in culinary subjects, texture is key in my opinion. While I am no expert (yet 😜), I feel that the best way to continue learning is by sharing and aiming to explain what you already know and even forcing yourself to investigate more to be able to provide as much value as you can. So, what that mindset, I will go over the three different textures I mentioned before and I will try to give you some tips and process so that you can try them too!
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How To Create a Ready-to-Print PDF File from InDesign
Hello people! It has been a while since I wrote a post on the printing aspects of illustration so I took the opportunity with the launch of my NEW square postcards added to my shop to explain a little bit more about how I create the files that I would normally send to the printer. As a graphic designer, this is a process that I repeated many times but that it is utterly important in order to ensure a good quality result. Thus, on this post I wanted to cover a very important part of the printing process which is creating a pdf file that will preserve the quality and colour range of your illustrations as close to the original piece as possible. I will be covering a few aspects and tricks that will help you create foolproof pdfs to send confidently to any printer. This is a crucial method that I have used over and over again professionally while overseeing the printing results of magazines, books and even comic books! Therefore, I would like to share here my process using InDesign and again some tips I have used along the way. I will be using the file of my square postcards as an example. Although advantageous, there is no need for you to have a previous command of InDesign to follow this post since I will walk you through the process every step of the way. I hope you find it useful!
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Time Management and How to Stop Treating your Dream Like Another Side Project
First of all, I would like to thank all the support and kind messages for my last post a couple of weeks ago. It was a vulnerable post for me and to receive such kindness and support made me feel so grateful and useful. In this week’s post, I would like to discuss time management and its impact on making everything seem feasible while I also take the opportunity to show you my last piece which really illustrates the topic. You will understand why :-) This might seem like a very evident idea with so many productivity blog posts and videos out there but this is less of a “tips on productivity” post and more a “give time and value to your dreams” post. As always, I can only speak from my own experience and, as I am myself on the pursue of a fulfilling and sustainable creative life, I hope this can be useful to someone else going through the same.
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#ClimbEveryMonday | How to Keep Your Art Going When You Feel Like Giving Up
Hello everyone! As some of you might know, it has been quite a while since I have published in this blog. As some of you might already know I moved last year to Edinburgh in search of new life experiences, to broaden the scope of my work and to ultimately learn more about myself and in terms of my artwork. It has been a little over a year and throughout this huge change, I have stumbled upon many road blocks that affected my creativity. Many of those came directly out of my own fears, doubts and insecurities as an artist. I have been guilty of judging myself, comparing to others, experiencing fear of putting my artwork out there and being affected by the know-so-popular “impostor syndrome”. Do those ring any bells? While trying to cope with all those blockages, I realized that I often shared only the content that showed me as being productive, being full of ideas or mastering my craft. In fact, underneath all that was the internal struggle to gain confidence in myself, appreciating my artwork and letting go of the fear of being judged and of failing as an artist. Believe me, this was no regular battle, this was an internal, Game of Thrones like clash with my own White Walkers (spoiler alert!) ^-^ In this post, I wanted to share with you a little about my personal experience and a great piece of advice that I think it might be useful.
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New Recipe Illustration
A few months have passed since I wrote here but I am finally back with more artwork and more art thoughts that I planning to share here and that I believe could be very helpful for other fellow artists or creatives. In the meantime, I want to show you the last recipe illustration that I made and submitted to the webpage They Draw and Cook. If you love food and recipe artwork you should check out this page and community!
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Daily Creative Musings #2 Sharpen Your Ideas
Yes, that was my workspace yesterday after I cheerfully arrived home from a most satisfying purchase of my first metal desktop sharpener and some pencils. I started sharpening like there was no tomorrow and I literally treated all my pencils with a new pointy “haircut”. As you all know, using the right tools can make a huge difference in your work. I was reminded of that yesterday. I want to personally thank botanical artist and designer –and my teacher!– Jenny Haslimeier for showing me a new way to make art. I was eager then to start using my newly sharpened pencils on the onions and garlics illustration!
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Daily Creative Musings #1 Playing with leaves
As I was posting some progress images yesterday through my Instagram Stories, I thought to myself that it was a shame that some of those images or little videos got stored away and not so easy to appreciate progress. I also thought that it would be fun to transfer those stories into my blog as a personal diary mostly of my creative process, outside inspiration and other considerations. Without a specific plan on how I am going to do it, my attempt is to post daily as a why to keep those stories to myself and to, hopefully, be of some interest to you as well.
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Venturing Recipe Illustration
When I was commissioned with my first illustrated recipe I had to figure out the best way to showcase my artwork and, at the same time, visually –and beautifully– interpret a dish that someone had entrusted me with. Whether you are doing it for yourself or for a client, in this post I would like to cover up the process that took for me to find the best way to accomplish that and also other considerations and inspiration that I found extremely helpful. There are many different approaches and angles to go over illustrating a recipe but this is just my own.
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Culinary Illustrations from Pistoia featured in NATURART Magazine
Many months have passed since my last post and, if you follow me through social media, you might know that is due to my relocating in Edinburgh, Scotland. While I want to fully dedicate a post to that, today I wanted to share this exciting feature that my illustrations dedicated to Pistoia and its delicacies got along with the other talented creatives curious travellers who took part last year in the #CCTravellers17 organized by CCT-SeeCity.
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2017 Appreciation, A year in review
How do you measure a year? In my case, 2017 has been really important as it has been the first as a professional illustrator, after a career shift and it has entailed a lot of heavy –sometimes painful– lessons and new beautiful experiences. Everything has been so intense to me that I felt I needed to somehow look back and appreciate it all. So, can I measure five hundred twenty-five thousand and almost six hundred minutes? Exactly like this...
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On using and editing my own reference photos
Whether one is beginning or an established professional, the reality is that using some kind of source image or even drawing from reference is something that we all do and need at some point or another. In my case, the use of reference pictures is the basis of my work but in order to step out of copyright issues, I try as much as I can to provide myself with my own reference photos. While I am no professional photographer, I did a lot of prepping and retouching images as a graphic designer so, in this post, I will try to show you this little tips I learnt along the way and how I use them.
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Food illustration portfolio reel 2017
A little over a month has been since my last post and it does feel like a lifetime. Since the last time I wrote here, I have been working a lot on promotion and creating new pieces to showcase my artwork this year. As a result of that I created my first Youtube video! It is a short one but it took quite some time to make. The title video of this post is a brief compilation of some of my most elaborate work of this year 2017 –that I can't believe is nearly finishing–. I included not only final illustrations but some process footage that I had been recording. Let me invite you to watch it, comment it and if you like it, subscribe to my channel!
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On experimenting with turmeric and other natural pigments
One of the best experiences I had while visiting Pistoia this Summer was all the delicious food and local products that I tasted there. Amongst all those delicacies –about which I will be posting soon on this blog and on the CCT-SeeCity page–, I tried for the first time in my live a turmeric croissant. Being a fan of this beautiful yellow ochre powder and practically using it all my meals, I returned home with the idea of also using it as a natural pigment for a painting. A few weeks had gone by since I had the intention and finally last Monday I started to put it into practice.
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Heading to Pistoia with CCT-SeeCity #CCTravellers2017
I first learnt about this opportunity to experience art and travel from a different perspective through ArtConnect and was immediately drawn to it because of the philosophy behind it. This was like nothing I have ever experienced before but I decided to apply to their open call to welcome 50 creative and curious travellers –I certainly related to that–, who would also be writers, photographers, filmmakers, illustrators and artists from all over the world.
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On Cookbooks that I love
I you have been following me on my Instagram and Facebook accounts, you will probably know the topic of my post today. It is no surprise that I am talking about one of my favorite subjects in the world, cookbooks. As if books alone weren't fascinating enough, the wonderful publications that I have found over the years, revolving directly or indirectly around food, never cease to beguile me. Having in mind that I paint mostly about food, you can imagine that the editions that I value the most are the ones that present illustrations. The books that I want to discuss today, in this new post series that I am starting, are precisely two beautiful rare and super illustrated cookbooks that I wanted you to know. Prepare for a feast for your eyes...
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On Print Promotion
Hello friends! This last weeks I have been quite busy finishing and preparing my first round of print promotion or promo mailers –as I have seen also online– of my illustration work. As a former graphic designer, I have to say I had never used this marketing strategy to access companies, although I had been advised about it in my student years. Again, just like I said in previous posts, I am no expert on the matter but I hope that by sharing my experience you might get some inspiration.
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On Editing Illustrations in Photoshop and Getting Them Print Ready
On this post I wanted to cover a very important part of the process of illustrating which is editing and preparing illustrations for clients and printing purposes. Although sometimes tedious, this is a very important part of the process of sharing artwork since good editing can ensure a great print and display of your work and, conversely, poor editing can result in lower quality and end up not doing your piece enough justice. Having worked as a graphic designer and, specifically in editorial work, editing images was crucial. I would like to share here my personal process and some tips I learned along the way. I hope you find it useful!
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Pumpkin velouté with sour cream, baguette slice and olive oil.
On the Importance of Appreciation
Judging by this post's title, maybe you would think that the subject deviates from slightly more artistic or professional matters. I want to reassure you that this post is not a preaching one nor I am trying to come off as a super profound person, though I value and trust my sensitivity a great deal. This post comes from personal experience, which is directly connected with my work as an illustrator and the conclusions I got from that experience.
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On Fine Art Giclée Papers
Happy Holidays
This last few days of the year have been really busy with projects and implementing the website –which I am still working on–, but still I wanted to take some time to make an illustration specially dedicated to the holidays.
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