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"Safety?": photo & digital collage
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Tom Hovey, the Illustrator Behind the Delectable ‘Great British Bake Off’ Drawings, on How the Show Has Catapulted His Career
Meet the U.K. artist who has created over 3,000 illustrations of often-fantastical baked goods for the award-winning TV program.
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| A planned bake by Stacey Hart for The Great British Bake-Off. |
For more than a decade, The Great British Bake Off, or The Great British Baking Show,
as it has known here in the U.S., has celebrated the art of baking,
with amateur contestants crafting astounding confections of flour,
butter, and sugar. But before the show reveals those finished creations,
it whets viewers’ appetites with colorful illustrations of each bake,
which for all 13 seasons, as well as various holiday specials and
spinoffs, designed by Bristol artist Tom Hovey.
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| Tom Hovey at work in the studio |
Now 39 years old, Hovey had moved to London and was struggling to
find work as a young artist back in 2010 when a friend connected him
with an entry-level editing job at a new cooking show. As it happened,
that show was Bake Off, which was just getting underway on its
very first season—and fortuitously, Hovey confessed to his new bosses
that he was an aspiring illustrator for whom a T.V. job was nothing more
than a paycheck.
“One day, they came back from lunch, pulled me aside, and said,
‘Through the course of editing the first episode, we’ve realized that
there’s a little visual element missing from the show. The bakers are
throwing flour and eggs in the bowls and then sitting on the floor and
staring at ovens for 20 minutes—it’s hard to kind of get a grasp on
what’s actually being created. We’d like you to have a go at giving the
viewers a way to understand what the bakers are putting together,'”
Hovey told Artnet News. It took a few drafts, but Hovey eventually managed to create the
first of the colorful illustrations that would quickly become a fixture
of the show.
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| A planned bake by Paul Jagger for The Great British Bake Off. |
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| A planned bake by Kim-Joy Hewlett for The Great British Bake Off. |
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| A planned bake by Selasi Gbormittah for The Great British Bake Off. |
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| A planned bake by Helena Garcia for The Great British Bake Off. |
Despite having illustrated more than 3,000 bakes over the past 12
years, the artist has never actually tasted any of the food—even though
this might seem a natural perk of the job. In fact, he has only been on
set once, when he visited with his wife in 2014.
“It was quite nice to see the tent in person, but the reality is it’s
a long day of filming, and if you don’t turn up at the right time,
there isn’t stuff to eat. You’ve got to hang around, and we were just in
and out really,” Hovey explained. (He’s been invited back many times,
but has never made it happen.)
Last week I got a great Halloween card from Mitzi, here. So I knew I wanted to make a card for her, but WW was here and I got distracted.
Tonight I thought, I must get to it. I have exquisite radar for when the time is about to expire. I had an idea of what I wanted so I made a quick scribble.
It never turns out like the quick sketch, but gives me a start. I wanted to watch the world series, but my tv in my studio is not working, so I took some paper into the living room and cut and tore some of the objects I needed, while I watched off and on.
Then later, I added them to the clothesline drawn on the card, they are attached only at the clothespin area.
The above is the final of the front.
Below is the final of the inside of the card
I might collage something on the envelope, or not?
By the time you read this, it is in the mail.
A 3-minute video, chocolate, here.
Just because ...
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| Blue Crane |
Smiles for Saturday ...
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