Inspiration Fridays! Coffee Stains
Coffee Stains
Coffee stains. It started with a ring. Napkins and coffee cups littered the café tables where my friends and I would meet before heading off to our high school in downtown Portland.
“Serious art is born from serious play.” – the SERIOUSLY observant Julia Cameron
There I would sit, pounding equal parts coffee, sugar, and cream, and fidgeting with whatever pencils I found at the bottom of my bag. I drew my friends, cups and saucers, the complimentary bread and butter, even the shiny metal ductwork.
Frenetic conversations escalate quickly. Inevitably, a mug would make my sketchbook its coaster, branding my drawing with a rich sepia ring. My masterpiece ruined, tempers would flare, someone would forget their money, and a collage of stained napkins and spilled coffee would be left in our wake, caffeine’s reminder of how not to behave when drinking coffee at a nice restaurant that serves free bread.
Drawing was fun, but mostly, I was lost in the act of finding my identity and creating something new. The painting came later.
I’m pretty good at drawing people at the adjacent table without being too obvious. No one really seems to mind anyway. In fact, I’ve made a lot of friends this way.
I don’t drink as much coffee as I used to but I don’t like to see it wasted either. What began with a couple of misplaced coffee cups and some dark rings on my favorite sketches, has evolved into the beginning stages of some brilliant little paintings!
These days, when I turn up at a coffee shop armed with my sketchbook, I bring along a bit of a kit. A roll of artist masking tape, a small paintbrush, a couple of pencils, an eraser, and a small tube of white gouache make the possibilities almost infinite. If I’ve drawn out something I like, I will mask it off and dip my brush into what’s left of my coffee. Add some gouache highlights here and there, remove the tape, and presto, there might even be something worth framing!
This recent addition of a couple of new tools has flipped my sketchbook on its spine. It’s a new world out there. Think of the rich tones I’d get with a blueberry scone. Have you given coffee a try? Too jittery? Go sultry with a deep Southern Oregon Tempranillo. Or chase the dragon. Maybe both! Experimenting with different media is a great way to snap us out of our doldrums and energize our creativity. Why so serious!? Making our art fun is the aperitif to making our art great.