Coffee Is Not For Drinking

Okay so coffee is for drinking. I drink it pretty often. I recently drank Michigan Cherry coffee...soooooo good! And it smells amazing. And if you don't already have a Keurig you should invest in one. It makes drinking coffee so much easier! Let me tell ya.

Anyways thats not what this post is about. What I really want to talk about is my coffee painting experience. Have you ever painted with coffee? I found out that I really like how it looks on paper. And the smell makes it so much more enjoyable to paint with. Let me explain my set up: I used a pad of watercolor paper to paint on. I went to Hobby Lobby and got a little cheap pad. A watercolor paint brush that is a size 4 or 6 round. And two cups. One filled with soaked coffee grounds and the other with brewed coffee. I lied, three cups. The third is filled with water. 

So I did some research on painting with coffee. I found out that the longer the grounds soak, the darker the coffee paint will be. Thats about how much research I did and it all I remember right now. haha So I just went at it. It was really my own experiment. 

I started with a pencil sketch. Then I dipped my paintbrush in the brewed coffee. This is after it cooled btw. And then I just painted where I wanted color. It dried very light. So I just layered it up. And where I wanted spots to be dark I used the soaked coffee grounds that had a little water in it. I basically painted as if I was using watercolor paints. And then I added detail with a waterproof ink pen. 

I wanted also to experiment with using coffee filters. A Keurig doesn't have these...so I went and bought some, obviously. haha. I soaked some of them in brewed coffee but it didn't absorb much color...I think I need to break out the old reliable coffee maker and brew the coffee through the filters. 

This is how my first one turned out

So not to bad...? Yeah? So I've learned a lot from this experience with coffee. I like how it looks on paper. It almost looks like brown watercolor, I know, but painting with coffee is a little different. Its much thinner for sure. And another thing I learned is, if you are drinking coffee while painting with coffee, try not to get your drinking cup and your painting cup mixed up. =]

If you want to see my other coffee illustrations click here!

If you are up for trying something new in the joy of painting category, try this!