Painting red hot food art

Capsicums and chillis are so incredibly sensual, they curve and bulge inside their shiny hot red skin.  I just love to paint these vegetables on steroids – build up the red hot colour with layers of vermillion tinted medium until the canvas just glows with vitality.

This is the technique of the great masters, especially Caravaggio who didn’t even draw his subjects first but painted straight onto the canvas.  He started with a grisaille – a monotone painting in burnt umber  and shades of grey – molding the shape to perfection before adding any other colour. 

This method produces a spectacular complexity in the final painting.  The under layers show through giving a depth of colour that is almost impossible to achieve any other way.   The semi-transparent layers reportedly reflect the light back and forth giving that translucency that many natural surfaces have.  In particular skin tones.  The top layer of the skin is a yellowy transparent layer masking the red underneath to give the characteristic pinky orangey colour of Caucasian skin. 

Combining this with a touch of chiaroscuro gives a drama that makes the painting ‘pop’.  Those masters knew a thing or two.

Old Michelangelo Marisi da Caravaggio was a bit of a man about town with a red hot temperament – even had his sword confiscated in Rome for getting into a bit too much biffo.  Ended up having to do a runner after killing a guy.  Apparently he never had a kitchen in his house – ate out every night.  But he met a sticky end, according to one report, on a beach between Rome and Milan after the grand master of the Order of St.John apparently ordered a hit and two knights were duly dispatched to do the job

Anyway back to the art.

The deep red colour is achieved by tinting medium with vermillion and washing it over a dry underpainting and then re-establishing the highlights being careful not to dull the molding.  I like to let the brush wander and make it’s own depressions and ridges and then enhance them.

 

And once the painting’s finished there is always the cooking.  Steve Manfredi has a brilliant Capsicum and Eggplant Rotolo with black and white hand made pasta.  He has these fabulous pasta dishes that are assembled from cooked ingredients, including the pasta and then chilled and served cold.  Basically this dish consists of alternate layers of black egg pasta (made with cuttlefish or squid ink) and white egg pasta with tomato sauce, fresh basil and roasted capsicum between the layers.  The whole thing is then rolled tightly and chilled, cut into slices and served with a little extra tomato sauce.  Wow I can taste it now!