A portrait of Henry Brooks, born into slavery. Painted entirely with dark and white chocolate! This slideshow shows his development, how he got to his final stage.

1. ‘Food for Thought’
(Henry Brooks)
A chocolate painting by
tinteart.

2. When chocolate was introduced
to Europe, it was enjoyed by the
decadent, and as it grew in
popularity became more
available.
However, there was a big boost
in the slave trade to deal with
the ever increasing demand for
cocoa. Chocolate was a whole
new way for people to be
exploited.
The man in the portrait is Henry
Brooks, born into slavery and
painted entirely with dark and
white chocolate.

3. A lot of time and care has gone
into making Henry Brooks, and
getting his features drawn right
proved to be quite difficult.
Took me a few days to get him
looking right with a pencil, then
I started blocking in the colour
by using a base coat of dark
chocolate applied with a
scraper.

4. The next stage was to add
tone to his features, to get the
contours and shapes right.
I mainly used my fingers for
this, a good way to blend the
chocolate together, as the
warmth in my fingertips helped
to keep it pliable.

5. The tone was built up
gradually layer by layer, I left
his eyes and mouth until after I
had most of his skin worked on
as I knew they would be
difficult to get right.

6. I had the basic shape and
tones of his eyes filled in, I just
needed to blend it all together,
and try and capture his facial
expression, which was mainly
present in his eyes.

7. Henry Brooks face is almost
finished, as you can see more
tones and lines have been
added, and his mouth has
been filled in.
His left eye needs more work,
and his ear needs shading, by
this point I’m adding on detail
with a thin brush.

8. Henry’s face is finished! The
details have been added to his
eyes and ear, and white
chocolate has been applied
with a palette knife for his hair
and moustache.
The stubble on his chin is also
white chocolate but applied in
a different way, the interesting
result being that when you run
your fingers over it, it feels
rough like stubble.

9. The finished article,
he’s been given a
textural and warm
looking background,
and his clothes have
been painted in.
I then coated him with
a couple layers of
confectioners glaze to
protect him from any
environmental
damage.