Artist creates tasteful drawings for foodie event
Michelle Bryan with her artwork
(CNS Local Life): The Taste of Cayman Food and Drink Festival has partnered with local artist Michelle Bryan, whose specially commissioned illustrations will be used on all of the event’s branding and promotion, including on print adverts, banners, flyers and across social media. Organisers of the Cayman Islands Tourism Association’s (CITA) largest annual fundraiser asked Bryan to create a series of illustrations depicting a range of Caymanian culinary characters.
Among these characters were a fisherman and a heavy cake baker, as well as designs of local food and drink favourites, including fruit, conch and rum punch, a festival press release said. Other Caymanian-inspired illustrations in the series include the Cayman parrot, palm trees, steel pans and stingrays. The creations were designed with Taste of Cayman’s colours and style in mind.
Taste of Cayman 2019 will be held on Saturday, 26 January, bringing together Cayman’s wide range of culinary offerings, as well as live entertainment, immersive experiences and live cooking demonstrations, the release said. The festival is one of Cayman’s longest running events and CITA’s largest annual fundraiser.
With her “fun, rustic drawing style, her Caymanian heritage and love for the festival, Bryan was a natural choice”, the release stated.
“My illustrations were largely inspired by Cayman’s culture and history,” Bryan said. “The women depicted are inspired by the strong Caymanian women of bygone eras, including my own late grandmother, Ondina Wood, and national hero, the Hon. Mrs Sybil McLaughlin, who held local society together while the men went off to sea.”
She added, “The men are dressed in rolled-up shirt sleeves and pant legs and large straw hats as they would have in order to go fishing for crab, conch, lobsters and fish to feed their families.
“I wanted my illustrations to portray Caymankind and the fun of the islands where I grew up.” The artist explained that each illustration, which took about four hours to complete, went through three stages – sketch, paint and black line.
“I have loved art since I was a little girl at Bodden Town Primary School, even dressing up as an artist for a career day,” Bryan said. “I have always loved creating and I knew working for Taste of Cayman would be fun, so I was very keen.”
CITA executive director Tiffany Dixon-Ebanks, said of Bryan: “We’re delighted to have such a talented local artist on board for 2019’s event,” adding, “the characters are so unique and embody Cayman’s culinary scene from decades ago, with traditional dress and heavy cake baking, to today’s tourist who can be seen BBQ’ing on the beach”.
For more information and to buy tickets go to the Taste of Cayman website
