Illustrated pesto GIF: Italian food illustration and loop animation
This illustrated pesto GIF depicts the making of the iconic Italian sauce, Pesto alla Genovese! This staple of the Italian cuisine has its roots in the city of Genoa (Genova), the capital of the Liguria region in Northwest Italy. Have you tried it yet with fried eggs on toast? It’s heaven!
Illustrated pesto GIF: Kitchen tools and ingredients
For this GIF, I wanted to animate two of Italy’s most iconic traditional kitchen tools: The Neapolitan olive oil dispenser (Oliera Napoletana), and the Italian mortar and pestle.
As you can see, this illustrated pesto GIF has three of the seven ingredients needed to prepare this scrumptious sauce (six if you exclude the Pecorino cheese). Basil (basilico), olive oil (olio d’oliva), and pine nuts (pinoli) are the three heroes I decided to focus on in this animated illustration.
This said, the other ingredients you need to prepare an authentic basil pesto include garlic (aglio), Parmigiano Reggiano (an Italian dry cheese ), Pecorino Sardo (another hard Italian cheese produced exclusively on the island of Sardinia), and coarse sea salt (sale marino grosso).
Frame-by-frame GIF in Procreate
Procreate is a great app for making frame-by-frame animated GIFs. It has a wide array of native brushes and the ability to import your own. It also makes it possible to create animations based on your artwork.
The app’s GIF feature is fun to work with. It’s where I create food GIFs that tell stories about the Mediterranean region, where I come from. I also use the Affinity Designer app on iPad to create light-weight line illustrations that are then exported to Procreate.
For this looping animation, I added watercolour to the digital line art to create a cohesive look with my blog’s spot illustrations (check them out on the Home page), and I must say I like the results.
I started out creating GIFs in Procreate, but with time I found myself making more and more short food animations, such as this frame-by-frame pasta animation. I love still illustrations, but there is a different flavour to movement. It’s a story-telling tool that doesn’t need anything else outside of itself. And THAT is mesmerising!
Last but not least, more animation loops are in the pipeline, so make sure to check my Illustrated GIFs blog series for future posts!
Food illustration of an Italian olive oil dispenser pouring olive oil into a mortar and pestle. There’s also basil leaves and pine nuts coming together to prepare the classic Pesto alla Genovese. This line and wash illustration is by illustrator and artist Ruba Saqr.
Leave a Reply