Today I am sharing my process of illustrating Eri’s Delivery Service for my friend (and fellow Substack writer) Eri Wade.
A Brooklyn Heights based chef, Eri has worked at several NYC restaurants (Lalito, Colonie, Diner, Marlow and Sons). She recently welcomed her baby Harper into the world and launched her own lunch delivery business - “Eri’s Delivery Service”.
Eri commissioned me to create an illustration for her business. Much like Kiki’s Delivery Service (the inspiration for the name) Eri personally delivers all of her deliciously curated meals (but sadly on bike, not on broom).
As always Eri and I started our collaboration with several concept sketches of what an illustration could look like. We wanted something whimsical, something that communicated the freshness and hyper-local nature of the dining experience, as well as Eri’s inspiration of the Asian flavors of her upbringing in Japan and Singapore.
The first concept really leans into the “Kiki” inspiration with Eri on a broom flying over a little packed lunch town. I also love this one for its storytelling - a little lunch town seems like the great setting for a children’s book. In the end we settled on the last sketch which includes little Harper helping her mom with deliveries.
We made a few refinements, mainly of what food would be depicted. Instead of produce, Harper holds a onigiri (a Japanese rice ball) while Eri’s basket holds a runny egg.
Once we finalized the sketch I started “sourcing” materials (i.e. I started rummaging in my basket). I have a large basket full of papers I have collected for collage purposes - old watercolor or printmaking experiments that I have decided to re-purpose, or papers that I collect from magazines, advertisements, letters, cards, etc. A good collage paper is anything that has some structural integrity (but not too thick to be a hassle to cut) and has an interesting texture or pattern.
Once I have put together a good palate of colors and textures its time to assemble, with the final sketch as my guide.
Once I have the most important and largest components put together, it is time to scan and transition to working digitally. The fine details - eyeballs, wheel spokes, shoelaces - are the final touches that are drawn on digitally. I could at this point continue to glue everything onto a white background and do these things by hand, but adding them digitally later allows for more control and flexibility in editing and revisions if necessary.
In the end I am so pleased with how the final artwork turned out!
Watching Eri balance motherhood, launch a small business, and continue to cultivate her culinary creativity has been truly inspirational to me. I am so happy I was able to collaborate with her on this project. I feel like I have learned so much from her and working on this project has made me even more excited for the coming weeks when I welcome my own baby girl into the world.
If you are a Brooklyn heights local I highly recommend ordering yourself some lunch.- I guarantee you will not regret it!
So fun! I love seeing the process!