Specialization in Creative Narrative Recipe Books

Organising Your Idea: The Layout and Rough Designs

Now that you have the idea for the course project, I will explain how you can write a rough structure of the journal entries on a piece of paper to bring the story together.

In this lesson, I will teach you creative writing techniques that will help you write descriptively about food.

How to Write about Food

12m

The Opening Pages

I will start by writing the body of the journal entry. This will be an introduction explaining what the journal is about.

The First Story: Memory of Spring

I can now develop the first journal entry. In this text, I will link the memory of Pakistan and Scotland through my wild garlic chutney.

15m

The Second Story: Learning to Cook through Conversation

For the second entry of the journal, I will focus on the theme of cooking through conversation. You will see how I insert some dialogue in this text to reflect the conversations I listened to when I was younger.

The Third Story: Nani Mummy’s Rice Pudding

Finally, for my third entry, I will talk about my grandmother cooking her rice pudding and the comfort it conjures up. To do this, I will use both the actual recipe as well as photographs, an envelope, and sketches.

Keeping Up Daily Exercises

The journal is not exactly done! In this lesson, I will talk about books, daily exercises, and prompts to inspire you and help you keep adding pages and memories to your flavour journal.

Writing as a Habit

You only get better with practice, and that is why I wish to share with you ways I manage to sustain a consistent journaling practice. Let's dive in!

Module 4

Step into the world of culinary storytelling, where recipes do more than feed—they speak. In this first step, Sumayya Usmani welcomes you into the roots of her creative journey, where food becomes a vessel for memory, culture, and identity. You’ll discover the inspirations and lived experiences that shaped her voice, and start seeing your own kitchen not just as a place to cook, but as a space to tell stories that matter.

11 lessons (1h 21m)

Why and How to Start a Cookbook

I'll start by telling you why I think cookbooks should be written. Then, I'll tell you about the different types of cookbooks and what you need to think about when writing one.

Methodology

In this lesson, you will learn the main elements of a cookbook and how to do the research to compile it. I’ll also talk about the type of cookbook you might want to write: is it a visual food journey through a country or a personal narrative with recipes?

Breaking Down the Chapters

In this lesson, I will teach you how to create a theme for your book. This will help to keep it cohesive and create a structure for your chapter breakdown.

Structure Needed for a Pitch

Now that we know how to build the structure of a cookbook. I will explain what you need to do to create enough material to be able to pitch your book to a traditional agent or publisher. We'll also see an example of a book proposal, which you will need if you wish to have your cookbook published traditionally.

The Beginning of a Chapter

A chapter introduction should appeal to the reader and make them want to explore the chapter. Here I'll show you how to write this kind of introduction and tell a story within it.

The Story Surrounding the Recipe

Why write a story surrounding the recipe? Because it makes it attractive to the reader and interesting enough for them to want to try the recipe. In this lesson, I'll teach you how to work with this element of your cookbook's narrative and explain how it differs from the introduction to the chapter.

Writing a Simple Recipe

Let’s start writing recipes! The first one we'll explore is a simple recipe: one without complicated ingredient lists or complex methods.

Writing a Two-Step Recipe

We can now proceed to the two-step recipe. This one has two components to the recipe and a more complicated list of ingredients. But don't worry! I'll teach you how to write it with confidence.

The last thing we need for our structure is the conclusion. How do you conclude your cookbook? I'll show you here my method for writing a conclusion. I will also help you write your acknowledgements section and add credits, if applicable.

The Conclusion

Pitching Your Book to a Publisher

If you want to get published the traditional way, you need to try and make your book stand out. Here I'll share with you basic ways you can increase your chances of getting your cookbook picked up from the pile.

Tips for Self-Publishing

You can also try (or prefer) to be self-published. In that case, I'd like to share some tips on how best to prepare your book for this kind of publication.

Module 5

Let your appetite for creativity take the lead as Melanie Chadwick welcomes you into her colorful world of illustrated recipes. But before you grab your pens and paint, take a moment to discover the inspirations and visual influences that shape her playful style. From sketchbooks to spice jars, you’ll get a taste of what fuels her process and begin to see how food can be drawn, celebrated, and shared through art.

16 lessons (2h 49m)

Cook Recipe

In this lesson, you will gather and prepare ingredients, create and cook your dish, and write down the recipe.

Infographic Language

In this lesson, you will learn how to use visual language to explain a recipe and see how it brings a recipe to life. I’ll share different examples of how I and other artists have illustrated food to inspire you.

Sketching 1

In this lesson, we'll take a closer look at all the ingredients in our recipe and draw them in our sketchbook. We’ll be loosening up through a variety of exercises that will guide us to think about shape, line, colour, and composition.

Let's keep on working on composing the sketches.

Sketching 2

Let's top off this part of the process.

Sketching 3

In this lesson, we will work from our initial sketchbook drawings and will now use a brush pen and ink to re-draw the ingredients.

Ink Drawing

In this lesson, I'll show you how I create a bank of textures using ink and paint, which we'll add to our digital illustration later. We will use a variety of tools and mediums to create these.

Creating textures

17m

Hand Lettering

In this lesson, I'll show you how I add hand lettering to my illustration and encourage you to discover a hand lettering style for your piece. We'll write out the ingredients and recipe instructions in a couple of ways.

Scanning Textures and Ink Drawings

In this lesson, we will be scanning all our textures and ink drawings into Photoshop. I'll show you how I play with the levels to make sure they are suitable for Illustrator and are saved in the right format.

In this lesson, I will show you how to use the live trace tool to convert the scanned ink drawings and lettering into vector files ready to use.

Live Tracing

Colour Palette

In this lesson, I’ll show you a simple way to choose a colour palette for food illustration.

Combining Texture and Colour

In this lesson, I’ll show you how I combine the textures with the colour. I’ll show you step by step by using clipping masks and the opacity tool.

13m

Final Composition

In this lesson, we’ll create the final composition of our recipe, add a textured background and the lettering. We’ll also add any final texture shadows using the pencil tool.

In this lesson I’ll show you how to save and prepare your files for print, I'll then give you ideas of what you could do with your illustrated food recipe and what you could print it on.

Print It

Share It

In this lesson, you’ll be inspired to share your illustration with a wider audience.

Illustrate More Food

In this lesson, I’ll share a range of simple exercises that will encourage you to keep drawing food.

Module 6

Sink into the softness of watercolor with Enya Todd as your guide, and discover how food can come to life through pigment and brushstrokes. Before the first sketch or splash of color, you’ll explore the personal influences that shape Enya’s delicate, mouthwatering style. It’s a chance to understand how memory, emotion, and flavor all flow into the art of painting what we eat.

11 lessons (2h 13m)

The Tools

Here I'll show you all the tools that I'll use and you will need for the project of this course.

Types of Paper

In this video, I will walk you through the difference between cold press and hot press paper. I will compare artworks on both papers and explain which type to choose according to the effect you'd like to achieve.

Texturing is incredibly important when it comes to food illustration. This lesson will explain how you can capture different textures using the tools that I showed you previously.

Food Textures

To start working on the project, I will look for several references images and combine them to sketch a composition on Procreate. Sometimes clients will provide their own image, but if you're working on a personal project, you can choose whichever image inspires you the most. Once the sketch is ready, I'll show you how to transfer it onto the watercolour paper.

References and Sketch

This lesson will teach you a simple way to set up your watercolour palette. I'll give you insights on what paints I use, what order I put them in, and how I colour mix. These tips will ensure you have the best possible watercolour painting experience.

Colour Palettes

Painting with Watercolour 1

It's time to start painting! You'll see here how I paint my illustration from start to finish. I'll show you first how I set up my desk and the tools I've chosen to use for my project. I'll begin with my Molotow pen to create the white chocolate swirls. Then, for the watercolours, I'll start with the lighter colours then gradually move on to the darker areas.

20m

Painting with Watercolour 2

The main elements of the illustration are done, and the paint has dried. I'll now work on the nitty-gritty details, but in a loose style. For the raspberries, I'll use a thinner brush. I'll also be adding some shadows to create more depth and texture. Then, I'll work on the spoon and the spread. For this, I'll look back to my reference image – don't hesitate to do that too!

Painting with Watercolour 3

I will now use my remover block to erase the masking fluid. It's the moment of truth! When it has all been removed, I will proceed to add extra details by making a mess: I'll use a long brush to create chocolate spatter.

Touch-ups in Photoshop

Here I'll teach you how to digitalise your illustrations and do some touch-ups to the image to make sure the lighting and colours are as close as possible to the original, analogue version. To import your image, you can use a scanner or take a picture with a camera. In this case, I will be doing the latter.