Jessie Bayliss

For a 2019 Masterchef episode featuring Michelin-starred chef Paul Ainsworth, I was commissioned to hand-paint eight carousels as set props, along with matching menu illustrations, to carry the visual identity of the episode's showpiece dessert — 'A Fairground Tale'.

I painted the carousels in the tradition of British fairground art — scrollwork, swag, rosettes and signwriting — giving each one its own ornamental character while keeping them reading as a single family. The menu illustrations picked up the same vocabulary at a smaller scale so the dessert's identity carried from painted prop to printed page.

The carousels and menus featured as set props in the 2019 Masterchef episode.