You have one, don't you? An old cookbook, a hand-me-down from the forties or fifties, maybe older. It's something that tells you how to kill and pluck a chicken, and how to cook beef tongue. If you don't have one, you wish you did. This isn't bought from some used bookstore, or discovered at the curbside on trash day. This is the book your mother cooked with, given to her by her mother. It's uneven pages are stained with years of lard and butter, its spine is cracked.

And when you need good old fashioned home cooked goodness, you open its pages and search your family history. 

~ Sue Molyneaux

Figure # 1. Taking reference photographs. Deciding the layout of garlic on the book takes time. How far into the book do you go? Should you stick to the first few pages so the base of the image is thick? Or half way through the book, so the pages from the beginning rise up like a tidal wave? How much do you show of a faux cutting board (in this case, a well-worn picture frame). Where do you place the garlic? Where is the light coming from?

Figure # 2. Taking reference photos is not all glamour. I sat for long periods of time holding up the back clothe (in this case, black) while my photographer and spouse took reference photos.

Figures # 3-9. Samples from the photo shoot. They were taken in colour and then transferred into black and white. This added a lot of depth and texture for me to see the crevices and cracks of the old paper, and the garlic itself. I think Kelly is an excellent photographer!

     

Figure # 10. My painting of The Old Cookbook. I decided to emphasize the yellows and browns of age, set against a strong white of garlic that also picks up a bit of age in the shadows. Lean in close, can you smell the warmth of a home cooked meal?

Figure # 11 

Click this link to see a large portion of this painting up close. And click this link if you would like to purchase a fine art print of The Old Cookbook.