This assignment will consolidate the skills and knowledge you have gained from the projects and exercises so far. At this stage of your development it is important that you focus on research and gathering and evolving your ideas.

The brief

To create images which will be used within a campaign for a supermarket, to package and promote a range of seasonal foods. The supermarket is respected for the quality of food they supply. They want to promote this notion of quality in their design and packaging.

The finished images will be a‘point of sale’ display sited in a store near to the fruit and vegetables. The final reproduction size will be 12 x12 inches. Your artwork can be same size or in scale.

What to do

Create an illustration of fruit or vegetables. One illustration for each of the ranges:

Summer, Autumn

Your images should be objective and based upon direct observation. For each range you may choose an individual piece, dissected or partly sliced sections, or create a group of several pieces.

Then create separate images for Summer and Autumn that reflect both the produce you previously selected and aspects of the season itself. There are no limitations in terms of content – you can include other objects; a place; patterns; people or a combination of these. Illustrating food is a challenging area of work. Focus on the food in your image. Remember to create a visual distance between you and the food.

Put yourself in the place of the customer and ask, “Does this look edible? Would I like to eat it?” Be especially conscious of the way you use colour to describe tone, shadow and surface marks – poor colour choices can result in food looking mouldy, battered, and ultimately unappetising.

OCA Key Steps in Illustration

I started by looking at photography of fruit and vegetables, as I think this project requires a certain level of objective understanding, I wanted to start by collating as much beautiful, interesting appetising photography as I could.

Firstly I organised these into Summer and Autumn categories just by looking at them not caring too much about what season the actual fruit or veg is harvested in. I wanted to look at the colour patterns to see what makes an image remind me of summer and autumn respectively.

Here are a couple screenshots to illustrate my overall findings.

The summer board was mainly made up of images with vibrant colours, with generally lighter backgrounds and juicy, dewy looking fruits.

My autumn board was featuring warmer colours, with generally darker backgrounds. Reds, oranges and purples were dominating this board with an occasional hint of blue.

Next, I wanted to look at what fruits and vegetables are actually grown in the above mentioned seasons to I can narrow down what should be featured in my final illustrations.

This is what my research returned:

I found resource extremely helpful: https://www.vegsoc.org/cookery-school/blog/seasonal-uk-grown-produce/

June

Asparagus, Aubergine, Beetroot, Blackcurrants, Broad Beans, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cherries, Chicory, Chillies, Courgettes, Cucumber, Elderflowers, Gooseberries, Lettuce, Marrow, New Potatoes, Peas, Peppers, Radishes, Raspberries, Redcurrants, Rhubarb, Rocket, Runner Beans, Samphire, Sorrel, Spring Greens, Spring Onions, Strawberries, Summer Squash, Swiss Chard, Tayberries, Turnips, Watercress.

July

Aubergine, Beetroot, Blackberries, Blackcurrants, Blueberries, Broad Beans, Broccoli, Carrots, Cauliflower, Cherries, Chicory, Chillies, Courgettes, Cucumber, Gooseberries, Greengages, Fennel, French Beans, Garlic, Kohlrabi, Loganberries, New Potatoes, Onions, Peas, Potatoes, Radishes, Raspberries, Redcurrants, Rhubarb, Rocket, Runner Beans, Samphire, Sorrel, Spring Greens, Spring Onions, Strawberries, Summer Squash, Swish Chard, Tomatoes, Turnips, Watercress.

August

Aubergine, Beetroot, Blackberries, Blackcurrants, Broad Beans, Broccoli, Carrots, Cauliflower, Cherries, Chicory, Chillies, Courgettes, Cucumber, Damsons, Fennel, French Beans, Garlic, Greengages, Kohlrabi, Leeks, Lettuce, Loganberries, Mangetout, Marrow, Mushrooms, Parsnips, Peas, Peppers, Potatoes, Plums, Pumpkin, Radishes, Raspberries, Redcurrants, Rhubarb, Rocket, Runner Beans, Samphire, Sorrel, Spring Greens, Spring Onions, Strawberries, Summer Squash, Sweetcorn, Swiss Chard, Tomatoes, Watercress.

vegsoc.org – summer months

September

Aubergine, Beetroot, Blackberries, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery, Courgettes, Chicory, Chillies, Cucumber, Damsons, Garlic, Kale, Kohlrabi, Leeks, Lettuce, Mangetout, Marrow, Onions, Parsnips, Pears, Peas, Peppers, Plums, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Radishes, Raspberries, Rhubarb, Rocket, Runner Beans, Samphire, Sorrel, Spinach, Spring Greens, Spring Onions, Strawberries, Summer Squash, Sweetcorn, Swiss Chard, Tomatoes, Turnips, Watercress, Wild Mushrooms.

October

Aubergine, Apples, Beetroot, Blackberries, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celeriac, Celery, Chestnuts, Chicory, Chillies, Courgette, Cucumber, Elderberries, Kale, Leeks, Lettuce, Marrow, Onions, Parsnips, Pears, Peas, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Radishes, Rocket, Runner Beans, Spinach, Spring Greens, Spring Onions, Summer Squash, Swede, Sweetcorn, Swiss Chard, Tomatoes, Turnips, Watercress, Wild Mushrooms, Winter Squash.

November

Apples, Beetroot, Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celeriac, Celery, Chestnuts, Chicory, Cranberries, Elderberries, Jerusalem Artichokes, Kale, Leeks, Onions, Parsnips, Pears, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Swede, Swiss Chard, Turnips, Watercress, Wild Mushrooms, Winter Squash.

vegsoc.org – Autumn months

I wanted to gather out the fruit and veg from both of the seasons that I thought would be interesting to draw and also would fit the looks I have identified in my image gathering phase. I was also thinking about what colours and shapes I wanted in my illustration, so I can come up with a list for both of the seasons that would work as a starting point.

Summer: Asparagus, Beetroot, Strawberries, Radishes, Raspberries, Chillies, Peas, Turnips, Elderflowers, Watercress, Cherries, Runner Beans, Cauliflower, Fennel, Tomatoes, Damsons, Broccoli, Summer Squash, Redcurrants, Gooseberries, Watermelon

Autumn: Aubergine, Blackberries, Garlic, Chestnuts, Wild Mushrooms, Apples, Onions, Winter Squash, Rhubarb, Jerusalem Artichokes, Pumpkin, Pears

I found that the above list had duplicates over the summer and autumn months so I moved some things such as Rhubarb to the Autumn list as I think the colour would work better and I had quite a lot to work with for the summer season. I didn’t want to set this in stone, but I thought it would be good to have these as a starting point.

Next I wanted to gather more imagery to see what sort of layouts I would like to consider. I went ahead and researched point of sale and fruit and vegetable stands to see what I like.

I made another Pinterest board for this.

I really liked some of these ideas, and I felt ready to start producing thumbnails for my point of sale display.

I started playing with ideas of scattered fruit, and although I quite like this effect on food photography pictures, I am not sure if these would translate as an illustration. I though maybe I could create a repeat pattern, but as I was trying to picture this, I thought it might look a bit cheap, certainly not something that would resonate with the type of client this would be produced for.

My other ideas (still inspired by food photography) were more scene based, where the seasonal grow would be arranged into a cooking scene. I think this works slightly better because it puts the food in context, and doesn’t look overly simple.

I was also toying with the idea of creating a macro shot like image. The problem with this I think would be the rendering. I would need to render this in a good way for the selected piece to look juicy and edible. I had more simple stylistic image in mind, as if they wanted something photo realistic they would just go with a photo in my opinion.

I think I am mostly leaning towards creating a cooking scene image for this, so the fruit and veg can look as appetising as possible.

Next I wanted to look at some recipes starting with the summer one, to base the illustration on.

After a few minutes of flipping through cook books and checking this against my seasonal food calendar and looking up ingredients that were not on my initial list, I found this recipe: Spinach, Asparagus, and Strawberry Salad

I thought this salad nicely represents summer, since it has simple ingredients and would look quite interesting. I had this before and it is absolutely delicious, even though I found the combination somewhat unconventional at first.

Next I wanted to create some practice drawings for the following items that would be included in my final illustration.

• tablespoons,
• olive oil/ vinegar bottles,
• asparagus,
• Salt grains,
• spinach leaves,
• strawberries (sliced and whole),
• walnuts

Walnuts are a little bit tricky, I thought of them more of a winter nut, however apparently they can be harvested between November and June. So I think I can allow myself a little artistic freedom with this. I think they would look quite cool maybe scattered on the side.

I started by looking at the different elements I needed to Include and make some line-drawings for each element. While drawing each element I kept my final picture in mind. I wanted to illustrate a salad bowl with and some extra items on the side.

Once I had my line drawings I started to assemble my artwork in Adobe illustrator. I used the image trace function to create vectors for my lifework and started to layer things one by one to assemble my salad.

I created some colour blocks that I put behind the line drawings while I left some unfilled as I felt these worked better that way. I was playing around with different background colours and layouts. I settled on the below as a first draft.

For my Autumn illustration I had something slightly different in mind, I wanted to still create a food photography kind of image. I had some vague ideas, such as a pumpkin pie, or something similar.

Another “fruit” that I would love to include is the fig. I find this “fruit” really interesting with its dark purple and red combinations, that just evokes the feeling of autumn for me. I put fruit in quotation marks becasue I just found out that they are not actually fruits, they are inverted flowers. This discovery just made this that much more interesting to me.

I found this fig tart recipe quite interesting and I think it could look quite pretty illustrated.

https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/entertain/honeyed-fig-and-curd-cheese-tart/

The list of ingredients I will need to draw:

• purple figs (Whole and sliced)
• Almond flakes
• Tart dish
• Honey
• Cake slice

I wanted to illustrate this from above in a similar way to my previous illustration to create a cohesive set.

I made some line drawings, just as before I wanted to keep my final image in mind, I really liked the one with the apple pie from my reference board, so I wanted to make that sort of layout.

I was playing around with different layouts and colours. I really wanted to use the purple of the figs so this served as the basis for my colour scheme.

I started by building the pie. I made the base from a simple circle and the pie dish drawing I made, then started laying the figs on top of this to create my pie. I picked the colours for these from my reference photos to make sure the colours look “edible”.

I was keep referring back to some food photography images to make sure that the layout is interesting and the colours are in a nice cohesive colour scheme. I think the first draft of these illustrations have turned out pretty well.

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I have noticed a few small things that I would like to tidy up, but overall, I think I am really happy with the results. In parts the drawing is pretty rough, which I think adds to the charm of the illustration, however I feel like something was missing. I wanted to see if I could add a few textures to the illustrations to create a more painterly look. I exported my artworks in as PSD format to see if I could apply some additional details in Procreate on my iPad.

Reflection

I found this assignment very interesting and enjoyable. I think I managed to use some of the techniques I learnt throughout this part of the the course and feel that the images I created at the end fulfil the brief.

I really like how they turned out. Yet again I remind myself that perhaps I should be using more of the traditional techniques, however I feel that it’s more of a preference thing with me. I just like to play digitally more than I like to play on paper.

I think this part shown me that a solid process when coming up with ideas for illustration is paramount. I feel that looking at references really clicked with me this last assignment, because I have never drawn most of the items in my illustrations (maybe with the exception of a strawberry). I know that my drawings were not perfect in the end, but I am pretty proud of the final images, and I don’t think I would be ashamed of them if they were displayed at a supermarket.

Overall, I am really happy with my progress thus far.