Did you know, you can use your favourite coffee to create beautiful art work? Coffee is an interesting media and it’s easily available too. It can be used to create beautiful monochromatic paintings. Watercolour techniques can be used for coffee paintings as well. Let’s get started with a simple landscape painting.
MATERIALS REQUIRED:
- Watercolour Paper
- Pencil and eraser
- Coffee powder
- Mixing plate
- Brushes
- Masking tape
- Scrap paper
- Paper napkin
- Clean water
- Rag
Keep all the materials ready before you start.
CREATING THE MIX:
Add coffee powder in different quantities in mixing tray and add water to dilute it. Less coffee with more water will create lighter shade and more coffee with less water will create darker shade. The more water you add to the coffee, lighter the shade becomes. Generally three or four shades are enough for a painting. Let’s create the shades.
LET’S START PAINTING:
Take your watercolour paper and stick it to the table with masking tape as shown below.
Now create a lightest mix by adding more water to coffee powder and paint the entire sheet. I have used a 1/2 inch flat brush to do it. Always keep a scrap paper handy to test the mix which you have created.
Use paper napkin to wipe off any extra mix from the paper. Don’t overdo it, otherwise it will take off the all the colour leaving the white patches on the paper.
Once the first wash is done, wait till it dries completely before you start the second. Next create a mix slightly darker than the previous one by adding more coffee powder. Use a no.4 flat brush to create the farthest mountain and no.9 round brush to fill the mountain as shown below.
Wait till it dries off completely. To speed up the drying process you can use a hair dryer. Repeat the same steps again with darker shades to create different mountains. Keep in mind, before starting the new mountains old mountains should be dried completely. Once it is done, your painting will look something like this.
Now let’s start painting the trees. Use a no. 4 round brush, load it with the darkest mix and start creating the trees as shown below.
Once you have painted all the trees, wait until it dries up completely. Remove the masking tape carefully without tearing the paper off.
Hurray!!! Your first coffee painting is done. Hope you enjoyed it. Keep practicing.
