During the home-isolation, I enjoy spending my spare time painting, drawing and creating stuff whilst following the occasional video tutorials. Here is another one I’ve completed some days ago inspired by one of Ana’s brilliant tutorials. It’s time for some coffee!
Ana’s Idea
In the tutorial, Ana shows us another cool idea: Painting with coffee! That works really well with old pages in vintage books as she demonstrates below. Here she suggested using instant coffee.
Improvising
I loved the idea! Alas, I don’t have any vintage or old books suitable for this purpose though. And nor do we keep instant coffee at home. And then an idea cropped up! I have tons of foreign-language newspapers lying around which I collect during my travels as they’d become handy in my artwork. Teamed with some matte medium and torn bits of Japanese-language newspaper, I created a mixed up collage on a page from Strathmore’s Mixed Media sketchbook. As for the coffee, well, I made sure I had saved the leftover Senseo coffee from the morning!
Little One is in the News!
And once I was done with the collage and letting it all dry completely, I so had to make it all kawaii. So I of course proceeded in drawing my Little One! A random doodle that as usual is not perfect in a cute sort of way. I love that she ends up a bit lopsided and asymmetrical. A permanent marker like Staedler’s is recommended to avoid smearing when applying the coffee later.
It’s Coffee Time!
I then got brave and began brushing the coffee on the background, being careful not to go past the outlines. A few layers had to be added to make it the shade I liked and also to even out the colour. Unlike paper from vintage books, newspapers are not as porous and absorb less water, as I learned. The eyes and collar were also coloured in with the coffee. I let the painting dry overnight and was pleasantly surprised at the results the next morning.
A simple painting that nevertheless says a lot. Perhaps it’s because of all the writing in the newspaper collage as you would also see in a page from a book. The coffee also gives a beautiful stain, adding to the vintage look. When I shared this painting to Ana, she was quite impressed with how I improvised using some Japanese-language newspaper. She also added I should do this again but to try it with paint too. I think that’s a great idea and will definitely keep in mind, It’ll give a different atmosphere with colours for sure, and I’m curious!
My Kawaii Quarter 