Making a Fantasy Landscape with Food

I have already shared work about using the artist Carl Warner as an inspiration to produce fantasy foodscapes using Photoshop (the link to that scheme of work is below). However this is an expensive software to purchase and a difficult software to master. However I have recently been using Word, Power Point and Publisher with my year 4 class to produce art in the foodscape style and have got great results with this common software. After discussing the artist Arcimboldo and getting the children to understand how he created his artwork I got children to create their own 'fruit faces.'

Once the children were confident in moving and manipulating the fruit around on the page using png and vector images I had collected from creative common sites I then got the children to produce fantasy landscapes. Here are some of the results, which I'm sure you'll agree are great!

For the final piece of work I got my pupils to produce a foodscape of a rainforest, the topic we had been covering this term. these are the finest two examples of the work produced.

Foodscapes with Mixed Media- by Anjum Razaq

At first glance the pictures look like beautifully created landscapes including verdant grass, luscious waterfalls and ominous looking mountains. However closer examination will show you that these are not paintings at all but wonderfully arranged food items carefully and precisely photographed. These pictures are the work of the London based artist Carl Warner who specialises in food landscapes.

Using Carl as an example the children in year 9 made food art or ‘foodscapes’ if you will, using the techniques practiced by Carl Warner. The children had to think carefully about their composition and lighting. Once the food was photographed (thanks Charli) the children then went about manipulating and editing the images in Photoshop to create some wonderful landscapes. Here are a few examples of the children work. I’m sure Carl would be very impressed, I am! This sequence of lesson plans could easily be adjusted for younger year groups and once children have a basic knowledge of Photoshop there is nothing here that is overly complex, but it does help to develop knowledge of composition.