My good friend, Makenna Gracey, works at Deli Italia in Ocean Park. The Delia has a large chalk board that sits outside their place and usually every two months or so, they commission me to draw on both designs. This weekend, they asked me to come in and re-do the chalkboard. They asked for one side to have lot's of deli meat and cheese, things found on a charcuterie board commonly. On the other side they wanted something Christmas since that season is coming up soon, they specifically mentioned the use of holly. I also had to include the words that were already on the board from before (which you can see in the photo of the final product). On the front side using chalk pastels, I drew a piece of holly in the top right corner to include Christmas. Then on the bottom, I used the chalk pastels to draw a variety of cheese, deli meat and vegetables. With a muted green color chalk paint pen, I wrote "Charcuterie Boards and Antipasto Platters" and "Ask Us!" as I was instructed. I also used a white chalk pen to outline the drawings done on this side. For the back side, I decided to draw a snow globe with a snowman, trees and snowflakes inside for the Christmas season theme they wanted. I also drew two pieces of holly to add to the Christmas theme and connect the two sides. Lastly, I used the same muted green chalk pen to write "Made Fresh Daily!" and listed below with arrows, "Fresh Soup Daily, Organic Salad, Roasted Organic Veggies and Muffuletta 5 Meat Panini". Below is the finished board:
This was a great opportunity for me because it gave me practice with working as an artist for something else and gave me practice with chalk art. Working with Deli Italia is my first times working by commission which gave me so much more experience with working like that. Working with Deli Italia, I had to incorporate what they wanted design wise and also incorporate the words onto the board. This gave me an opportunity to use my creativity in a limited way by making it fit to their restrictions which is helpful because this is commonly the case for commissioned artists. It also gave me the opportunity to work with chalk art, something I don't commonly work with outside this work. I unfortunately, I couldn't find photos of my past boards but when compared to my most recent one, I have definitely improved. I have gotten more skilled with my use of chalk and with my shading and drawing realism using the chalk medium.
תגובות