Food Inspiring Art

 

Food has served as a muse for artists for centuries. As a high school art educator, a favorite art project of mine over the years has been my beginning art students first color study where they select a food and then paint it using acrylic paint. For many of them, this is their first experience with contemplating arrangement of composition, mixing their primary colors to create secondary and tertiary colors as well as creating tints, tones and shades to show depth in their piece while considering highlights and shadows. Students are given the freedom to select any food they want. We also discuss developing a personal style and that not all good art has to be photo realistic. It’s ok to have more of a painterly touch, its ok if your painting looks like a painting and not a photograph, its ok if we see brush marks and everything isn’t perfectly blended in. Here are some of my favorite student food painting creations.

 

A pleasant surprise this semester was one of my advanced art students choosing to create food sculptures out of clay and then glaze or paint or do a combination of both. He also experimented with adding resign.