Ruba Saqr Art & Illustration - Logo

Illustration Blog

4 delicious recipe book covers: Gouache illustration of Middle Eastern cookbooks

The journey to create this gouache illustration of Middle eastern cookbooks started with one step. Pinning lots of deliciously-designed recipe book covers to a Pinterest board!

Illustration of Middle Eastern cookbooks - Ruba Saqr Art & Illustration | Food illustration, traditional illustration, analogue illustration, gouache illustration, Middle Eastern food illustration, Levantine food illustration, editorial food illustration, Syrian food illustration, Syrian cookbook illustration, Moroccan food illustration, Moroccan cookbook illustration, Turkish food illustration, Turkish cookbook illustration, Lebanese food illustration, Lebanese cookbook illustration, Persian food illustration, Persian cookbook illustration, North African food illustration, North African cookbook illustration, ultramarine blue illustration, magenta illustration.

I am a (digital) collector of cookbook covers. The hoarding began several years ago when I started seeing more and more English-speaking cookbooks being written by Arab women and men from my neck of the woods.

One thing I wasn’t happy about, though, was how difficult it was to find well-designed cookbook covers about Arab, North African and Middle Eastern food. I wanted to see ultramarine blue, Persian turquoise, geometric and organic Moroccan and Mamluk motifs, Lebanese tiles, Tunisian ceramics. Alas, even the ones with the Middle Eastern motifs fell short of transmitting the spirit of the Levant.

I remember how one book, in particular, about Palestinian cooking seemed like a missed opportunity. It looked Scandinavian rather than Mediterranean, and frankly speaking, it didn’t look like a cookbook at all.

But after a long and arduous search I finally came across these 4 cookbook covers. I thought they had that Middle Eastern vibe I was looking for, whether it was in the colour palette or simply the choice of patterns.

About the cookbooks

I picked the following cookbooks to illustrate based solely on their aesthetic. They all had interesting visual elements that promised to translate well into a nice food illustration.

01

Sumac: Recipes and Stories from Syria – by Syrian author Anas Atassi

I am really intrigued by this recipe book. Unlike cookbook covers that are often too direct or too conceptual, Sumac’s cover combines the best of both worlds. Not only does it have beautiful food photography as its main focus, but also there’s a subtlety to it.

The fresh pistachios – a staple of the Syrian cuisine, with their maroon colour and nostalgic ambiance – are scattered in and around a broken plate, symbolising a lost homeland. The colour palette reminds us of the spice, Sumac, with its deep red, brown and crimson hues. We don’t actually see the spice, but we sense its presence through colour.

I have mentioned this book before in a previous post featuring my first-ever illustrated map of Syrian food, created in celebration of the dawn of freedom in this beautiful Levantine country. Feel free to check it out!

Illustration of Sumac cookbook - Ruba Saqr Art & Illustration | Food illustration, cookbook illustration, illustration of Middle Eastern cookbook, Syrian food illustration, Syrian cookbook illustration, traditional illustration, analogue illustration, gouache illustration, Middle Eastern food illustration, Levantine food illustration, editorial food illustration, commercial illustration.
Illustration of Morocco cookbook - Ruba Saqr Art & Illustration | Food illustration, cookbook illustration, illustration of Middle Eastern cookbook, Moroccan food illustration, Moroccan cookbook illustration, traditional illustration, analogue illustration, gouache illustration, Middle Eastern food illustration, North African food illustration, North African cookbook illustration, editorial food illustration, commercial illustration.

02

Morocco: A Culinary Journey with Recipes – By American writer and photographer Jeff Koehler

This book’s cover has an exciting combination of red against a background of turquoise, with Moroccan-inspired yellow patterns adorning the edges of the page. Taking creative licence as a food illustrator, I amped up the red and used a vivid magenta against a darker teal background for my cookbook illustration.

03

Bottom of the Pot: Persian Recipes and Stories – by Naz Deravian

Block patterns are pre-designed block layouts that we can easily insert into their content. These patterns can help to save time and create visually appealing designs. Allows us to create custom themes using the block-based template.

Illustration of Bottom of the Pot cookbook - Ruba Saqr Art & Illustration | Food illustration, cookbook illustration, illustration of Middle Eastern cookbook, traditional illustration, analogue illustration, gouache illustration, Middle Eastern food illustration, Persian food illustration, Persian cookbook illustration, editorial food illustration, commercial illustration.
Illustration of Turkish and Lebanese cookbook - Ruba Saqr Art & Illustration | Food illustration, cookbook illustration, illustration of Middle Eastern cookbook, traditional illustration, analogue illustration, gouache illustration, Middle Eastern food illustration, Turkish food illustration, Turkish cookbook illustration, Lebanese food illustration, Lebanese cookbook illustration, editorial food illustration, commercial illustration.

04

Turkish and Lebanese: Delicious Turkish Recipes and Lebanese Recipes in One Amazing Mediterranean Cookbook

This book has a publisher but no author (at least none on the cover). I hadn’t really paid attention up until researching it for this post. I first spotted it on Pinterest. It was pinned by a known supermarket that actually sells a hardcopy of it through its online shop. Anyhow, I liked the blue pattern and decided I wanted to illustrate it.

BONUS

About this illustration of Middle Eastern cookbooks

I created these food illustrations with professional-grade gouache from Winsor & Newton and Royal Talens. I also used coloured ink pens to create the lines representing the book pages. The watercolour paper I used, though, was student-grade. It wasn’t even in 300gsm. But stretching it with washi tape against a wooden board to prevent it from buckling did the trick. This paper was so white and bright I knew it would scan well. I was right.

For more Levantine and North African food illustrations, please see my Illustrated Middle Eastern Food series. See you in my next illustrated post!

Illustration of Middle Eastern cookbooks - Ruba Saqr Art & Illustration | Food illustration, traditional illustration, analogue illustration, gouache illustration, Middle Eastern food illustration, Levantine food illustration, editorial food illustration, Syrian food illustration, Syrian cookbook illustration, Moroccan food illustration, Moroccan cookbook illustration, Turkish food illustration, Turkish cookbook illustration, Lebanese food illustration, Lebanese cookbook illustration, Persian food illustration, Persian cookbook illustration, North African food illustration, North African cookbook illustration, ultramarine blue illustration, magenta illustration.
Illustrated Middle Eastern Food - Ruba Saqr Art & Illustration | Fatayer illustration, pen and ink illustration, watercolour and ink illustration, Kibbeh illustration, Lebanese food illustration

You might also be interested in

, , , ,

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *