Food miniature art has given a major creative twist to the concept of miniature art. These miniatures are the petite (smallest) version of the foods around us. Their tiny avatar will not only make you adore them but their realism will make you gorge on these creations. Unfortunately, these are only a treat for your eyes and not for your taste buds. These are made out of substances like clay, plastic and polymer and hence are not for consumption purposes. These can be used to give your personal/professional places a creative and artistic presentation.
Even though they both had been creating these cute replicas for the past two years, Sudha Chandranarayanan started her brand, Cn Arts with her daughter, Neha Chandranarayanan this year itself. When asked about the brand, she shares, ‘’ my daughter loves miniatures. She is a huge foodie which is why on her 18th birthday, I gifted her a fridge magnet of her favorite food, dosa. She absolutely loved it and this is how we got this idea of taking our skills forward by creating more food miniatures. When we gave it a shot, it was loved and appreciated by all our friends and family members. This gave us the much-needed motivation and since then, we have focused on expanding our brand to hone our skills. This is how our brand, Cn Arts came into existence in 2020 even though we have been creating the miniatures for the past two years. At Cn Arts, our aim is on replicating yummy real food in the form of cute miniature creations. We create these food miniatures in the form of fridge magnets and keychains so that our clients can use them regularly. ‘’
Who would believe that behind this super talented clay artist has in fact been a Science student? When we questioned Sudha about how she realized and developed the passion for food miniature art, she says, ‘’ I am a chemistry graduate but always had a keen interest in crafting since childhood. I have an experience of clay crafting for the past 15 years. My daughter (who is doing her Engineering now) too is a clay artist and she loves clay crafting. We both have been creating lovely food miniatures from the past two years with our crafting skills. Though this field is nowhere related to our educational backgrounds, we took up this unconventional career because we just love creating miniature food items and that’s where our true passion lies. My experience as a clay crafter helped both of us to bring about the real effect in our food miniatures.’’
When questioned how much it takes her to create a piece, she informs, ‘’ It actually depends on the dish we are creating. Few are simple as compared to the others. Each ingredient in our creation such as vegetables, rice grains to the tiny mustard seeds are all handcrafted by us. So the time taken to complete a single piece depends on its complexity and the varied ingredients used in it. For example, a dosa platter takes us close to 4 hours whereas the biryani takes close to 15 hours as every rice grain is created by us. We spend long hours to make the creations look as real as possible. The average size of the pieces is mostly 5 cm. But we have also created some as tiny as 3 cm and as long as 11 cm depending on the number of the dishes and the kind of platter to be created.’’
When probed about the process and the equipment required, she explains, ‘’I use air dry clay and very basic tools to create the miniatures. Making these tiny bits does not require any complex tools. All it requires is a lot of practice, hard work, and patience as we are creating everything on a very tiny scale. Basically, we take reference of real food and its picture and try to create it in the most realistic way possible. Once we research about all the ingredients and the actual appearance of the food items, we then replicate it with the right amount of texture, color, and shape to bring about the realistic effect in our food miniatures.’’
When we puzzled her to pick one creation of the mother-daughter team which is close to her heart, she replied, ‘’ while all of them are dear to me, our miniature creation of South Indian thali with 15 different varieties is the one which we are proud of and are happy to have pulled off.’’
When enquired that if they have any plans to enter the edible arena, they informed that they have created innumerable clay miniatures and as of now are content with they are doing. They do not plan to enter the edible food miniature art space any time in the future. Sudha believes that the concept of the miniature is now known to many but the art of food miniature is still a rarity. However, she also adds that it is picking up the trend and hopefully will have increased space and prevalence in the near future.
Their hard work, efforts, and skills are indeed visible in their creations. They also customize as per their client’s requirements. Their clientele does not just buy these miniatures for self-use but they also have a demand for customizing them for special occasions like birthday, wedding, bachelor parties, etc. The surprising point to be noted is that the mother-daughter duo is self-taught food miniaturists. They take the reference of the real food before crafting them out intricately. The interesting part is Sudha is also imparting her knowledge with other people via online workshops which she is conducting regularly.
So if you are interested for enroll for her classes, or even wish to place an order for your loved ones, then please contact me or reach out to her at her Instagram account- @cnarts_miniatures.
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