Food and eating and drawing food

and why I like these things

Thank you to

Adam Ming

(I seem to frequently be thanking Adam – if you’re an illustrator and you don’t subscribe to his newsletter I would really advise doing so; he’s full of inspiration and advice, particularly for those of us transitioning to illustration later in life following other career paths – anyway, this wasn’t supposed to be an advert for his Substack, I’ll continue…) for reminding me how much I love drawing food.

I tend to label myself as a ‘lifestyle illustrator’ (I *think* – feel free to test it, because I know search engines show different results to different people, even if you’re signed in as incognito – that I appear on the first or second page if you search for ‘lifestyle illustrator’, which I guess means my SEO woo is good), and I definitely think food falls within that. What I enjoy drawing a lot is everyday life of various kinds – whether it’s room illustrations that hint at the life of the person who lives there, or list illustrations full of useful things for a particular moment in time (travel, being ill…) or people wandering a farmers’ market or chatting after a pleasant meal. And I also love that in the media I consume – books, TV shows, films, art…

I think everyday life is often seen as women’s arena and I have to admit to mostly reading female writers. And I am so very not interested in big-picture books on war or politics or history. But… I am very interested in what I have seen described as ‘little-picture’ stories – so in historical novels or non-fiction, the books about how ordinary people lived their lives, not how kings and queens lost their heads or gained their thrones (though sometimes their everyday life can be interesting too, when it’s more about their everyday life, rather than the wider things – Maggie O’Farrell is especially good at that, as seen in both Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait). Likewise, I am going to get more engaged in a political discussion about the cost of living and the need for free and high-quality (and highly paid) child care, than I am about the defence budget.

Anyway… I went off on a tangent there – I do that a lot, be grateful that you get the edited version and not what pours out of mouth – but I think it’s important to understand what you like to work on the most, because that’s probably (I think there are arguments for going the other way) where you’re going to produce your best work. And it seems that niching down is the way to go to get more work. Which makes sense. And food is an integral part of life and everyday life in particular.

So I was happy to get an excuse to do some food drawing this week. Even though I have a pile of other drawings I should be working on. Squeezing in time to draw some food in various ways has made me smile. And I think this is one of the most important things about a sketchbook or creative exploration practice, because it helps you discover, or reminds, you what you love and what you are good at. And it feeds your soul, when client work might not always (and probably shouldn’t always have to) hit that target.

Currently, I’m reading (yes, it’s taking me a while – I am definitely not a speed reader) Tim Spector’s Food for Life, which is fascinating and also happily confirming a lot of things that I have thought for a while and cementing my continuing desire to eat LOADS of vegetables all the time. (My husband will often make a meal that concentrates on specific flavours and therefore focuses on one or maybe two vegetables, whereas I will make a bolognese sauce, for example, that has about ten different vegetables in it. They both taste yummy, I believe. But mine wins on the nutrition it delivers.) There are also many fascinating surprises in there, and quite a bit of myth debunking. I may actually have to re-read it (hopefully more quickly – perhaps on the iPad in a digital form) to take notes and make sure I’m remembering the most important bits.

I was thinking it would be great to illustrate (and write, maybe) a book with a variety of ways to get thirty (whole and natural) plant foods into your week and then saw one appear in my feed somewhere as someone’s already done it. Though it looks like it may be full of photos, rather than fun quirky food illustrations (any publishers out there reading this who think there’s a market for a quirkily illustrated 30 plants a week book, I’m over here – email me, call me, send me a semaphore or pigeon). Or a series of little books going through the benefits of different plant foods – with fun and quirky illustrations. Because I would dearly love to sit down and spend a year or two drawing fruit and veg, and nuts and grains and herbs…

Oh, do you want to see the process video? Everyone loves a process video, right? (Those and sketchbook flick-throughs… Or is it just me?)

What about you?

If you’re an illustrator, do you have a niche? How big or small is it? I love how

Jo Scott

has built a career from the tiny niche of drawing pets (and especially dogs) for example. If you’re not an illustrator, have you found a niche for your Substack instead? Do you love exploring everyday life or are you more interested in the big picture (and I am really interested how that breaks down gender-wise, actually)? Or do you like drawing or writing about everything and whatever comes to your head? I read this note today, and it made me wonder if I could just write whatever the heck I want here, instead of trying to narrow down to some specific topics.

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