Bloody Maria in London

3 artworks sold out at Pick Me Up Exhibition

I’m really happy to announce that after selling my framed artwork at Supergraph Melbourne, three copies of this piece are traveling to Europe to be represented by Supergraph at Pick Me Up London 2015.

Bloody Mary Design Inspiration

This is the inspiration behind my first illustrated cocktail artwork called Bloody Maria.

For the last two and a half years of my career I have been focused on textile prints, although my formal education is Graphic Design and my major, typography. After these two years working on patterns, I felt the urge of combining my illustration skills with my passion for letterforms. This artwork is the result of my first attempt combining surface patterns with lettering.

I love tomatoes and I like vodka, so obviously Bloody Mary is always my cocktail of choice. I thought of this funny idea combining a pattern illustrating the basic ingredients of the cocktail accompanied by the alternative popular saying a Bloody Mary a day keeps the doctor away.

My first Bloody Mary in Melbourne was at one of my local cocktail venues called Polly. Their own interpretation of this classic American drink is called Bloody Polly (and that’s the reason why I called my piece Bloody Maria). I tried their cocktail and I absolutely loved it. This is Bloody Polly‘s recipe:

Garlic, beetroot and chilli vodka with as much hot sauce as we can lay our hands on. Finished with tomato juice, red wine, dukkah and pickles. Easy or eye watering, it’s your drink now.

Bloody Mary Design Process

The pattern is first created illustrating every individual element by hand using a 0.38 and 0.50 ballpoint pens.

After the linework is done, every drawing is retouched and coloured in Photoshop.

The base for the lettering is my own calligraphy using a ruling pen and walnut ink.

After that, using 0.38 ballpoint pen I added weight.

As a final step, I added hand-drawn details on top to make it more human (celery-looking lettering) and less computer-perfect.