Illustrated Travel Stories: Mediterranean Foodie Adventures

To me, travel is about the details: A delicious cup of coffee in the morning, a pleasantly brisk breeze that salutes you when you step out of the hotel, and the discovery of bricks-and-mortar stores you never knew existed behind a busy shopping high street.

All in all, I have been to over 20 countries and many more cities across three continents, sampling foods from different cultures and falling in love with the crafts and motifs of their urban, tribal and folk communities.

In essence, this Illustrated Travel Stories blog series is where I share my Mediterranean foodie adventures, some of the fascinating places I’ve been to, and the patterns and motifs that inform my illustration style.

I write about my infatuation with cultural illustration on my About page, and give further details about my illustration journey and love for traditional art and illustration supplies in the first post on my Illustration Blog.

Culturally-informed travel illustration

To this day, I like to scour the internet to research the places I’ve been to and the dishes I’ve tried.

When I’m not illustrating or cooking, I’m almost always on the lookout for articles about Mediterranean kitchen tools and historic pottery, images capturing the intricate patterns adorning cultural heritage landmarks, as well as food recipes and natural remedies known to indigenous and immigrant communities in the Levant.

This travel illustration, for instance, encapsulates some of the cultural travel angles that interest me. It depicts handmade kitchen tools and pottery from Italy (representing the European Mediterranean), Jordan (the Levant) and Egypt (representing the North African part of the Mediterranean).

To honour the unique architecture of the region, both old and new, there’s also a set of Roman columns from Jerash in Jordan, an ink sketch of the colosseum in Rome, and an ink and watercolour illustration of a vintage window from a typical 1930s home in the Levant.

There’s also an Arabic coffee pot and cups used by Bedouin and urban communities in the Middle East, in addition to an Italian oil canister (oliera). The artwork also has various travel spot illustrations featuring a patterned plane, the historic Hejaz Railway train in Jordan, an urban map, an illustrated map of Jordan, a luggage bag and a travel tag.

Lettering is also important to me. That’s why you can also see analogue and digital hand lettering in English, Arabic and Italian depicting words like “explore” and its Italian equivalent “esplora,” and “travel” and its Italian translation “viaggia.”

Quick sketches of the yummy Turkish pide flatbread, a packet of Italian spaghetti and the store-front of an Italian trattoria complete the scene.

Mediterranean foodie adventures: This sunny region through the eyes of an illustrator

Since I’m married to an Italian gastronome, Italy happens to be the number one country I’ve most frequented thus far. This is in addition to my past travels to other sun-kissed countries across the Mediterranean region, including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

For the most part, this blog series focuses on my Mediterranean foodie adventures around these beautiful countries. Through the art of illustration, I hope to record some of the authentic dishes, places, and patterns that emerge from the Levant, North Africa and the Arab Middle East.

At the same time, I do plan on introducing food illustrations and illustrated maps from my travels to other countries in Eastern and Western Europe and Central and Southeast Asia. These include the UK, Holland, Thailand, and Uzbekistan, among others.

Keep an eye out for more illustrated travel stories in this blog series’ three sub-categories: Illustrated Italy Culinary Tour, Illustrated Maps (coming soon), and an upcoming Architectural Illustration series.

I hope you will enjoy this hand-drawn journey with me! I look forward to seeing you in my next post!