Coffea arabica

This week I have been experimenting with painting with coffee. There are quite a few websites devoted to painting with coffee. Many of them display work which is quite lovely. But I don't look at a simple painting in an unusual technique as quite enough. For me, it is an element in a painting which should speak in some way which heightens the subject matter with which I am dealing.

As you have been able to see from my past paintings, I am speaking much about those things which are commodities of one sort or another. Things which can be traded. Among these many commodities are tea, gold, fur, tobacco, cowrie shells, and even humans. I like to put these actual objects, and more, into my painting/collages for their evocative qualities and their histories. Well, okay, I don't put the humans. I'm satisfied to put the mere representation of humans into my paintings. That is, after all, my real subject: the human condition.

I hadn't worked with coffee at all, and it is a beverage with a definitely rich history, much of it Arab and African. The fragrance of it is familiar, warm and comforting. It can signify hospitality in a lonely place - pretty much all over the world.

So this week I worked up a few paintings in coffee, to serve as elements in next week's painting/collages, very much in the same spirit as I cast many coins in my gel medium technique. I used a variety of photographic sources - primarily vintage. I don't consider them to be complete works in their own right, although they could certainly stand on their own. But you may enjoy looking at them as they are, nonetheless. They were done very quickly, and there are more than you see here. This is a representative sample. Coffee samples, as it were...

An Asian woman:

A poor sharecropper's daughter:

...and a boy praying above.

If you would like to try coffee painting yourself, it is a very pleasant way to paint, because of the delicious smell which lingers in the studio, and because it does seem to respond to one's directions very well.

Use instant coffee - I used Medaglia d'Oro instant espresso coffee, which is too expensive to be using as an art material, but I only wanted a small jar and I figured espresso might give good darks. Make the "brew" very thick - don't be afraid to use a lot of powdered coffee - much more than you would normally put in a cup to drink. As you work it will become thicker and stickier. This provides your very dark color and it is a bit shiny. You can also boil it down a bit, if you want it even darker.

Next week I will put these paintings, and others, through their paces as collage elements and we will see what happens.

Coffee on paper. Sizes from 12 x 16 cm to 16 x 25 cm.