Coffee Painting and Pencil Drawing

October 18, 2014 by

It’s becoming clear to me that I can’t stray too far from Painting with Coffee. Mixing strong black coffee with classic pencil drawing is a perfect new mix for me — I love coffee, I love painting and I love drawing. My art supplies are minimal and never far away from a creative urge.

For a little over one month I have committed to an exercise plan of drawing nothing but hammers every day. Luckily I have a special attraction to the way hammers look. They have a certain personality and are very easy to locate when I’m ready to draw. Just about every household has a hammer.

Ball Peen Hammer Painted with coffee

Ball Peen Hammer

Hammers drawn on watercolor paper make coffee painting irresistible. Now I’m working on a series of coffee paintings of hammers.

Coffee is not a new painting medium — I have been told that Victor Hugo painted with coffee. Here’s a link to other Coffee Painters. And here’s a link to my Coffee Shop.

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Coffee Money

July 30, 2014 by

I’m searching for new “Surfaces” for Coffee Art— trying to keep money in the equation while I explore and experiment. Why is pricing art work so difficult? It’s always been to easy for me to just give my paintings away rather than come up with some kind of price. I came upon an unexpected Aha moment with the discovery of coffee merging with $100 bills. That’s just about a close as I can come to seeing money in my art. The fabric of the $100 bills is not a absorbent as watercolor paper for coffee painting but the price couldn’t be more obvious. It feels good to comfortably say “The minimum price for this piece of art is $100.” There are probably some legal issues involved in “defacing” money but I like to think the bills are being enhanced as they becomes works of art and not “just money” At least in this case I most likely won’t just give them away —  or, maybe I will.

Before and After. Coffee painted on money and pressed maple leaves.

Before and After. Coffee painted on money and pressed Japanese Maple leaves.

 

Plus, the more I look at Ben Franklin the more he is beginning to look like my new “Mr. Right” He seems to be soaking up the coffee just fine. He’ll have to move over when Christmas comes around because my all time Number one Mr. Right is Santa Claus.

Now I’m moving on to dried, pressed leaves,  my next coffee surface.

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The Situation Room

June 7, 2013 by

The Situation Room is my Cyber Studio-Website.  It’s where whatever is currently in progress on my work table can be seen. Also, it’s a Cyber Voice for my intentions and what’s in the current plan.— my version of retiring to the Drawing Room. I keep a Blog  where I can talk to myself about what I’m creating— what’s on my mind. Enter at your own risk. I keep copies of my archival artwork organized in theme portfolios for quick reference.  The flat files are my cyber filing cabinets. The Situation Room is where I work and keep track of what I’m working on. It’s where I punch my time clock.

What’s currently on the table?

Now it’s ShowDown and that’s my version of “I just took the show down in San Rafael” and my next Situation there will be this Friday night.   I will volunteer for the Open Studios Preview Party. It will be nice to be on the other side of the excitement.

Painting with coffee over a pencil drawing. Photo Robert Tong

Painting with coffee over a pencil drawing. Photo Robert Tong


Coffee Painting Workshop | May 16th.
I have reserved a classroom at ArtWorks Downtown in San Rafael for my first workshop. There are already several people signed up and I think the current show also in ArtWorks Downtown will draw more interest because there will be coffee paintings on display and an announcement for the Coffee Painting workshop. I’m working on all of the details but it is a fun exploration and I hope this will be the first of many more workshops.

 

Coffee Painting History
I’ve started googling Coffee Painting to see what other artists have been doing with coffee. Here’s a Great One!

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