~Coffee Painting~

Hello everyone!

I tried a new type of painting method. It took me a long time to finish it because I felt a bit uneasy with this new style. The medium is similar to watercolor because it depends heavily on water. After a lot of mishaps and corrections I present to you my coffee painting.

I picked out a picture of Lord Buddha because it felt like a nice change and I could practice drawing basic facial features. I first drew out the reference picture in my style then made a dilute solution of coffee water and stained the page.

Fun fact: Coffee is used by people to stain paper and give it an old document-like feel because who doesn't love brown, faded writing paper.

For the head area I directly added small amount of coffee with my brush and wet it with a drop of water to give a really strong, dark color. Then I shifted my attention to the background where I experimented with the consistency of coffee and water. Some leaves are darker and some are lighter due to the amount of water. 

Work in Progress

The face and hands are coffee + water + white watercolor tube paint because I stained the entire sheet when I did the background and forgot to leave white spaces. The tube paint adds a different shade to the painting.

I spent the longest time on doing the robes because I had a hard time grasping how to shade using coffee and kept having to mix in white. I redrew the drapes as well, to give them a little flow.

Finished Piece

Although I did most of the line-art and painting simultaneously, I went over the lines again to give it a nice finished look. Overall it looks nice although I'm not sure if I will be tempted enough to do another coffee painting anytime soon.