Mixed Media – Food

I recently got the chance to try some mixed media art and I found that I really enjoyed it. It combined two of my favorite things together, photography and vector drawing. I took pictures of items, and then I drew over the photos with vectors.

I began by searching around my home for things I could photograph. I chose a lot of different things to try out. These three made the cut.

M&Ms

Mandarin Oranges

A Ritz Cracker

I had so many ideas, but for this first try I settled with just these three things. Some other ideas I had were using chap stick (spaceship), a Q-tip (oar for a canoe), paperclips (ballet slippers) and a skittle (one-eyed monster).

To take these pictures, I placed them on glass with white paper beneath for a background. I set up two continuous lights, a light wand on one side and a LED on the other. I wanted a lot of light, but I don’t think I had enough as my images were a little dark. No worries though, post editing can be very helpful. In post, I lighted up the backgrounds and made them whiter using the Selective Color filter.

Here is a picture of my setup when I took the photos.

Let’s begin with the Ritz cracker. This one was a little easier than the rest, so I thought it would be a good starting point for me. I added a green background, legs and a sheep’s face using the cracker as the sheep’s body. Very simple yet super cute.

Next came the mandarin oranges. They were a little more tricky, just because I had a plan for them and then I changed my mind. I love emojis. I think they are adorable so when I realized I could turn these oranges into the eyes of a laughing face emoji, I got really excited.

This last one I was really excited for. I love the movie Up. I knew I wanted to make the house with all the balloons and I thought M&M’s would be the perfect way to go. I wanted the house to be simple and very colorful as it was in the movie.

I had so much fun working on these food photography and vector drawing images. Mixed media has so many possibilities and I look forward to doing some more in the near future.

Check out Neil Duerden mixed media artwork here.