As you know from a recent post (here) I’ve been working on a new recipe illustration project for Chef Sebastian Carosi.  I’ve spent the most time designing a character who is doing the recipe “action”.  It was a challenge to create a cannabis leaf character with “hands” holding things. But I did it!  A photo of my progress is below…

When I’d illustrated Chef Kim Mahan’s recipes and we did a cookbook signing event together the question I was most often asked was “How do you keep your hand steady to handwrite all the recipe text?”  The answer is shown in the photograph below that also shows my progress on the current recipe project for Chef Carosi.

Can you see what it is?

Yes. A mahl stick. That’s my big studio secret. It steadies my hand both for painting and writing.

However I do something with my mahl stick that I’ve not seen anywhere else. I added a piece of foam pipe insulation that floats freely on the stick – so my wrist slides easily back and forth along the stick as the stick is held steadily in a position. When I’m writing text I need to be able to move my wrist a little along but stay on the same line. When painting sometimes I need to make a long stroke. Either way the foam moves smoothly with me down the length of the stick held in one place.

My mahl stick is hand made. You can buy a mahl stick but I find it easy enough to DIY.

To make mine I cut a small 2 inch portion of foam pipe insulation, taped it to the end of a 36 inch dowel rod, then wrapped that end, completely covering the taped 2 inch foam bit, with a scrap of canvas tying it to the rod so that no canvas fabric ends trail/drag.

The remainder of the foam pipe insulation, about 12 inches in length, was slipped onto the dowel rod.  In the photo below you can see the wrapped end of my mahl stick and see how loosely the foam pipe insulation wrist rest is on the rod. The other end (36 inches away!) has a hole drilled in it and a cord looped through it. It hangs on one of my art easel knobs when not in active use.

Okay. So the only time my mahl stick is not in active use is when I’m eating, reading or sleeping! Lol!

And now you know.