Back in the early 1920's Tony Andolini had one of the premier italian dining locations in New York City. His restaurant, Tony's, was subsequently shut down when a reporter/ food critique by the name of Rodney "Scoops" Peabody discovered the secret ingredient in his world famous spaghetti and meat balls! Scoops' discovery made national headlines! Ruined and humiliated Andolini never opened another restaurant. He denied the allegations of using "questionable products" to his deathbed in 1943. However, recently discovered was this old family photo of Tony out back in the alleyway cooking up an "old family recipe".
This was a really fun Illustration for me. I'd been sitting on this ruff sketch of a chef for a few months and really wanted to paint it. While trying to figure out a creative direction to take the image I the thought came to me "What is the secret ingredient in a secret ingredient recipe?" and this is what came from that idea.
I painted a full color version of this but it wasn't working for me so I decided to give it a sepia tone and a little ware and tear. This painting is 100% digital and was created in Photoshop CS6. I included a little gif so you can see the steps it took to create this image.
