Over this lockdown period, my love for making and eating food has doubled. Anyone who has seen my Instagram stories would have definitely seen this! If not, follow my instagram @laylachauhandesigns.

I originally started a sketchbook with illustrations of my recipes, alongside the recipe too. The illustrations have ranged from oil pastel sketches, gouache paintings and watercolours.

Anyway, while flicking through my mum’s illustration edition of Waitrose magazine, I realised that they were holding a competition for someone to illustrate the cover of their in house magazine. I decided from three drawings.

1. Lemon and blueberry cake.

This is a watercolour painting done with an Arteza Watercolour palette. I really enjoyed working with watercolours and practicing with them as I’ve always felt I haven’t been any good at them.

2. Roasted peppers with goats cheese and basil.

I’ve enjoyed working with gouache for this drawing. I worked a little freer with this drawing, only using very crucial brushstrokes to paint the peppers.

3. Hake and orzo.

I think this has to be my least favourite unfortunately. I found it really difficult to see the title on this. But I loved the texture from the oil pastels and the brightness of the colours!

4. Aubergine and goats cheese tart.

This was a mixed media piece that I did. I started off with some watercolours and then layered oil pastels, felt tip pens and biro on top.

I ended up deciding on choosing the lemon and blueberry cake. I think I liked the background the best and obviously liked the watercolour medium.

I hope you liked the final design as much as I do and hopefully you’ll see my design on a Waitrose food magazine soon!