Friday, January 29, 2016

MIx-Ability challenge: painting with coffee

It's my turn to host the Mix-Ability challenge this week, and I pulled out a technique I've been wanting to try for some time - painting with coffee!


You can work with regular or instant coffee - I chose instant coffee because it was easy to mix with a small amount of water, and easy to control the ratios for lighter and darker concentrations.


I filled a well of my palette about 1/2 full with the instant coffee powder, and then added water with a dropper until it was mixable. For a lighter color, I took some of the concentrated mixture and added more water in a second well.


Once the coffee is mixed, you can paint with it like you would a watercolor medium. Spritz with water to spread the color further or to create a wash for a background. Work from light to dark, and layer different shades of coffee paint to create depth. 


The painted coffee also lifts very willingly with water, so I had some fun with lifting here too - splattering in the background then rolling a paper towel roll across the piece, and lifting the steam area to lighten it up.


This was a lot of fun, and I hope you'll try it - I used the cheapest, smallest container of instant coffee I could find, and I'm happy with the results. I was working on matboard here, but watercolor paper worked well too.

Happy weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

14 comments:

  1. Love Love Love this, Being a coffee drinker it caught my eye. Would love one like this to frame for my Kitchen.

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  2. Thanks for the inspiration and the details!
    Your painting is delicious X 3 🤗

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  3. Such a clever idea. Never had thought of that. Love your finished picture and the colors turned out perfect. Will try it. One question? Does it smell like coffee? Edna Burgess

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  4. Oh my gosh!!! are you kidding me?? this is amazing!!!!! I also never, ever thought about this, how very clever and inventive Dina, the results are just beautiful and I bet this card smells glorious too!!
    What a perfectly perfect way to make cards for my coffee lover friends.
    I must give this a try, I will go and get a little jar of instant coffee ASAP!!
    Thank you so much for sharing.
    Maria.

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  5. Simply fabulous! It's a beautiful piece and an awesome technique!

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  6. Wow...what a fabulous cup a coffee painting Dina. I am definitely going to be playing. TFS my friend.

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  7. Wow, Dina, I don't drink coffee, but you made me want to try this! This is really a pretty painting! Brenda West

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  8. Looks like this was a ton of FUN Dina....great project!
    Paper Hugs,
    Jan

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  9. Oh Dina!! luv this!!! your painting is Fabulous!!

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  10. This looks awesome! Perfect subject too ;p

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  11. Amazing technique. Who knew? Thanks for always giving us something new to try!

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  12. What??? Paintng with with coffee? You are so talented and creative, Dina! This is just amazing technique to learn. Thank you so much for sharing it with us :)

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