LOVE COFFEE ? Let's paint with it: 3 fun projects

1. Aloha!: Hello and welcome to my painting with coffee class. My name is Keiko. I'm an artist and watercolor paint maker based in Hawaii. I don't know about you, but I keep finding hashtag, cup of coffee and tea all around in the house. I love coffee, I love tea, and I also love painting with these videos. Today's class is about painting with coffee. And if you've never tried it, if you like coffee, if you love trying out new things. This class is for you. We'll paint three projects together. But before we start, let me take you on a tour of our little Hawaiian coffee farm. Where is my coffee? Put it somewhere. 2. JamesBean Coffee farm tour: Coffee. Yes. This is coffee. The fruit of the coffee tree is called cherry red ones you see here have been growing for six months and are now ready for harvest. Starting July, we will be picking until the end of the year with every new round of red and ripe cherry. Hello and hello. My name is Keiko and I welcome you to my class for the summer workshop retreat. Before we start painting, let me take you on another tour on our james bean coffee farm. Our coffee farm is two acres big, or should I say small, and we have about 2 thousand coffee trees, which generates a cup of coffee per day for 300 people. Or it would, if it weren't for the coffee borer beetle and the coffee leaf rust. But that's a topic for another time. Let me take you over to a tree to have a closer look. This is a ripe and red coffee cherry. In it. There are two coffee beans. Sometimes there's only one that's called a P Barry, james and I well, mostly James. For me, they're usually too many mosquitoes on the farm. Pigs. Every cherry by hand. Yes, that's right. Every single one by hand. We pick only the ripest jellies. If you had a machine do it. That machine would also pick the green ones and the black dried-up ones. Nope, don't want that in your coffee cup. Also, with this kind of steep and rocky volcanic terrain, harvesting machine would have a hard time making it through the rows of coffee trees. So picking by hand, it is. After that, it's a whole long process of pooping. Rinsing with water, soaking overnight, and then drying. Drying takes about three days, or even up to a week. Depending on the sunshine. Once the beans are dry enough, they go through a milling and polishing process and a final quality check. And then comes the roasting. This locomotive of a roaster is a yeast, some really cool quality roaster from the Netherlands. And it does get hot in there about 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius. Our favorite medium rose, takes about 12 minutes to roast. And it's done. We let it rest overnight, and then let's have a cup. And here's a fun fact for you. A £100 of picked coffee does not make a £100 of roasted coffee. It's a lot less. After the pulping, you're only left with £50. After that, more is lost during the drying process. Sometimes we end up with only £10 or roasted coffee for every £100 of picturing. Is it worth all this work? Yeah, If you can believe that coming from a tea drinker like me. And now for the painting class. So grab your cup of coffee and let's get started. 3. Caffeinated supplies: For supplies, first thing you need is watercolor paper. I'm using this one by console, which is inexpensive and holds up well, it's 300 grams, £140 watercolor paper. You'll also need a pencil, different watercolor brushes, a fine liner pen, and a white Jelly Roll pen. And you might also need some washi tape to tape down your paper. And of course you will need coffee. You can either use instant coffee or coffee that you brew yourself. If you have both, or aren't sure which one to use, I would recommend that you use the instant coffee. It's really easy to create different values with instant coffee. Make it thicker or thinner, darker and lighter by just adding more or less powder to the water. If you do brew the coffee, makes sure to go for the espresso setting to make the coffee as dark as possible. Same thing goes for a French press or percolator or however you make your coffee. You can also use tea, black tea. If you don't have coffee. And to achieve a darker color, you can use several teabags and, or, and only a very little amount of water. A few tips for the instant coffee, try to go for a dark one. I only found medium in the store. But if you can get the darkest one that he can find, with instant coffee, it's easy to create different values, different strengths. I have these little dishes here. They're actually soy sauce bowls from Japan, but I exclusively use them for paint or coffee paint. Add different amount of coffee powder to your little dishes, and then add water. This one has the most powder and will be the darkest value. This one's a little lighter. It's going to be in between the dark and the lightest value. Let everything sit for a minute and it'll be easier to dissolve the powder. Then stir everything until the instant coffee crystals are completely solved. You can also make just one mix and water it down while you paint using a paint palette, just like you would with watercolor. For this class, I'm using the three mixes I just made. I keep my coffee paint and a mason jar. I like using them as I can put a lid on and label it and then keep it in the refrigerator if I don't use it all up at once. Coffee can be kept in the fridge for a few days or even longer, and the color tends to intensify during storage. And now let's get started with some swatches. 4. Swatches: I'd like to mention one more thing before we get started. Please rinse your brushes really well after each painting session and don't let them dry out with a coffee. I did that once and I realized that the brushes were really sticky. So I recommend rinsing them well with some water. Okay, Let's start with the lightest mix. Next up. Is the media mix. Bear in mind that coffee paint. Coffee dries darker once it's dry. So this might not really look like a big difference. But we'll see once it's dry, this is the darkest mix. You can even see the consistency is a bit different. It's a lot thicker. Also when you painted, it feels more creamy. This is coffee. I brew espresso. I'm going to wash the brush in water. This looks to be pretty much like the media, maybe a little bit darker. The swatches have dried. I'm just going to note down what I used. Basically just doing this so I can, I have a reference. I'd say the, the light in the medium or pretty close to each other. And also the espresso from the machine and the medium incident mixer look very similar. But you can see here with the instant dark mix, can see the shimmer. Then this is more mad. I find really fascinating because it's the exact same medium, just a different strength and it has a shimmer when it dries. Okay, I'll see you in our first project where we'll do some fun and easy animal doodles. 5. Project 1: cat doodles: For our first project, Let's start with some fun and very loose to those. The idea is to basically paint some coffee blogs in a very rough shape of the animal. In this case, I'm painting cats. And then later on add some details with a fine liner and the white Jelly Roll pen. You don't have to paint cats. You can paint whatever animal you like. Just keep it fun, keep it loose. Don't overthink it. Just try to outline the very basic shape of the animal. So I'm painting a tiny little dog here, which is the newest addition to our oh, Hannah family. That's LEO, a little Chihuahua, Jack Russell mix. And I'm adding some more coffee here, experimenting with how the coffee moves on the paper. How much I can add. And I'm going to speed up the video now and add some more shapes. This one's gonna be sleepy kitty, which is basically the position my cat BC is on. Most of the day. If you think that you've added too much coffee and you wanna get rid of some of it. Take a paper towel and block away some other coffee. And because these are Aloha kiddies, I will be adding some details such as a hibiscus flower and a hula skirt, a flower lay Garland. But please feel free to add whatever details you like. Or if you are also painting your pets, maybe you can think about something that they really like, favorite toy. Or if they have distinctive features, you can add these later. This one is gonna be wearing a whole Oscar. He's just sitting there. I'm painting him from behind and this is gonna be the skirt. I'm going to let this dry completely. I'm going to go back in with my fine liner and the white Jelly Roll pen and add some details. As you can see, the coffee dried in different ways. This one here has a few, has one cauliflower stain, which I think just adds to the character of the cat. So I don't mind it at all. If you don't really like this kinda look, just go back in with a brush and some more coffee and you can smooth that out. If you were wondering what this log here around the cat's neck is, I'm going to paint a smiley. That's a Garland made of myelin leaves and a few little flowers. I'm adding some dots and some lines for the legs. Tail is going to be a bit furry. Next one up is the sleepy kitty. My cat is very, very furry. He has long hair. And i'm, I'm trying to indicate that by adding a few more hurry lines. And he actually does have a lighter color on his belly. And then the hula skirt Kitty has some long whiskers, adding in some larger leaf shaped leaf shapes here. And also going to use the white gel pen now to add some highlights. I encourage you to just continue doodling in the details of your animals and tried to focus on the main features that stand out in each animal. For cats, I would say it's the pointy ears, whiskers. They have a curved back and a long tail. And most of all have fun. Don't overthink it. Just go ahead, be in the flow and add some fun and loose details. And the last animal here is LEO, the Chihuahua Jack Russell puppy. I'm drawing a myelin lay for him as well, adding some leaves, some myelin leaves, and then also adding little flowers. And just very few other details. The clause here and just a few lines to indicate the hair and some dots for highlights. And we're done. I hope you enjoyed this first project. Doodling some fun animals. And I'll see you in the next project. 6. Project 2: coffee tree branch: Before we start painting, let's take a closer look at a coffee branch. The leaves grow in pairs. One comes out to the right, one to the left, basically at the same spot. In the leaves, have this wavy, wavy on the edges and go into this pointed tip. The fruits growing clusters to basically look like olives. Oval, basic oval shape with little stems coming up here. So I'm basically going to start with lightly sketching everything in pencil and starting with the branch and then the leaves and adding the coffee fruit. Just start with a line for the branch. Then the mind, those leaves are a little wavy and they go off the branch at the same spot. Then the next one, little distance down here. So that's why the next one comes. Maybe this one fold over a little bit. So again, as they come in pairs, close off the same spot. And then you can see the cherries clustering around where the leaves come out. So I just want, I just want to add some of these olive shade coffee fruit. So once these term red, they're called coffee cherries, but they're not actually cherries. Guess they just call them that because they resemble cherries. I call them All cherries. Okay, And then same thing, Go down a little further. Add another leaf. And the same over here. Okay? Then you can add these details here for every leaf. Alright? So I'm not going to continue with adding every detail here. So for me that's enough. Oh, and maybe we'll add some more. One more round, one more cluster. Coffee tree fruit. Okay. The branch thickens a little bit. Okay, as I said before, usually I would just do those very lightly. Alternatively, you can also take an eraser and just erase the lines to the point where they're almost invisible so you can still see them. But they're not going to show him through the coffee painting later unless you're like this kinda like this effect of your sketch. I have all three different coffee paints that I'm mixed ready here, all the different values. The latest one is on the left and then the darkest ones on the right. We'll start with the lightest value and just basically go over the leaf shapes. First layer. This is just the first layer and we're going to add some darker values later. Just continue to fill out all the leaves. I'm doing the wet on dry, which means that the paper is dry and just adding the paint to the dry paper. I'm not sure you can already see that, but the parts here that dried already looked a little. Dark, at least to me while I'm sitting here looking at it. Then do the same with the coffee fruit. Just going to paint these ovals here. For the branch, I'm going to use a smaller brush that's around number two. I'm just going to follow that line all the way down. And painting stems. So this is hardly visible at all. I think I'm just going to move on to the next value and just drop in some paint here and the branch. So I'm basically dropping in some more paint with the darker value. This one has already dried. You can see where it's pretty dry. I'm trying to do this while the first coffee layer is still wet so that it blends nicely with the one that is already there. If you don't want to work that fast or the coffee dries too fast for you. You can use some water and easily re wet the coffee layer that's already there. Coffee is really super easy to be wet and activate. You can basically move that coffee paint around as you want. I'm going to let this dry. And then we come back and add another layer with the darkest hue and maybe some, some details. Now that this layer is completely dry, I'm gonna go back in with the darkest hue. Coffee paint, the darkest one, and give them some more definitions. So basically what I'm gonna do is I two halves all the while. Leaving, leaving out the center. We're not painting the center here for the center. We've pointed to. Do that for all the leaves. And this is a good example here to see how easy it is to reactivate the coffee. So you can just paint over these what we call as well or cauliflower shapes. When the, when the paint dries like this, you can just paint over it, re-activate the underlying, underlying layer and smoothing it out. If you liked this kinda college athlete, you can just work with it. You feel more comfortable using finer brush. Please feel free to do that. I know you can't smell this, but painting was coffee is not only a joy for the eyes, but also for the nose. Smells so good. Like the smell of coffee. Dealing with coffee because you've got to breathe in really nice coffee. Smell. If you write, you can drop them in different spots of the leaves for a little more. Variation and interests. And just keep it very loose and easy. Just continue to paint and if you think you made a mistake, it's super easy to fix. You can just grab a paper towel and then carefully, lot neat. And you can see you can see how a lighted gets. As long as the coffee is still wet. You can really take almost all of it away and make it look almost white. So this was just for demonstration purposes. And then I'll fill it back up because I actually want this part to look. Just wanted to show you what different options you have to work with. Textures and different hues are the cherries. I'm going to use the darkest value again. When you paint, please be careful to not put your hand into the wet spots here. You can also just select this part here, dry before you continue painting. Painting to be on the safe side. Coffee fruit and basically outlining them. And then I'll leave a highlight towards the left side on all of them. Then add the stem that connects it to the brand. The last part would be my definition on the branch. Just go back and add a fine line breakdown and then it gets a little thicker towards the bottom. So I'm gonna make it a little bit here. Alright, and I'll let this again when you, when it starts drying and has drying spots or cauliflower spots, but we don't like we can just go back in. I can do here and smooth it out. It might even have to add a little more coffee. This way, if you add more of this dark value, coffee, the leaf will get even darker. This way you could have lighter and darker leaves, which we'll also add a little more interest. Okay? And you can spend some more time here and define, define the edges, make them really crisp, or it can move it really loose. Have some ragged edges. Really personal preference. So by now you can tell that I like to work in a more messy style, very fluid, spontaneous. So I'm just basically going to leave this I personally like these drying cauliflower spots. So I'm going to leave those. But as I said, please feel free to smooth it out. All the details as much as you like. And ****. I really hope you get into painting with coffee and enjoying the process. I'm going to let this dry one more time and we come back and add some more details all the way down and then it gets a little thicker towards the bottom. So I'm just going to make it a little bit here. When it starts drying and has drying spots, cauliflower spots, but you don't you can just go back in like I'm doing here and smooth it out. It might even have to add a little more. This way, if you add more of this dark value, coffee, the leaf will get even darker. This way you can have lighter and darker leaves, which we'll also add a little more interest. You can spend some more time here and define, define the edges, make them really crisp, or it can move it really loose. Have some ragged enters. Real personal preference. And this is what it looks like when it's dry. And you can see that here where it's a little darker, It's kinda shimmery and the lighter parts, dry matte. Have to say I thought I was going on and some details with my Corona and white jelly roll. But I kinda, I kinda like it like this the way it is. So I think I'm just going to leave it, but please feel free to use to go back in there and add some details, or even with a small brush in some coffee. I'll see you in the next project. 7. Project 3: Hawaiian mountains: For the last project, I'm taping off a section on my watercolor pad with some washi tape. You can of course, use the whole sheet of paper any size you'd like, but I'd like to keep it fairly small for this project about a postcard size. Let's start with lightly sketching the volcano mountain tops. Add a circle here for the sun, and then some smaller hills and the foreground. I'm going to add to palm trees here. And some wavy lines to indicate the ocean. Further down we have some large leaves and lobster, Heliconius flowers and a bird of paradise flower. Just wanted to mention that you can of course, paint a different landscape or incorporate flowers or vegetation that you can find in the area where you live. Adding some Carlo leaves or taro, as they're known in English, draw a wavy and long heart shape. Then take an eraser and erase the lines to the point where they're hardly visible, but you can still see them. The first layer will be a light wash, and I'm using a flat brush here. You can do this with a round brush to I just find it easier with a flat brush. Try to paint away from the washi tape so it's less likely that you drag the paint underneath the tape in the spots where you might not have taped it down enough. You can also hold up the paper pad and an angle so the paint flows down towards the bottom. If the paint is pulling at the bottom, take a paper towel and dab away some of the coffee. Just don't press down too hard. Otherwise you'll be left with some white spots. I'm going to let this dry now. This is now dry and it dried pretty evenly. If it didn't for you, just don't worry about it. As we will be painting in the landscape and we'll cover most of the background. Next, I'll paint the volcano mountains. The ones that are further away, lighter in value than the ones that are in the foreground and closer to the viewer. That's true for this coffee painting, but also for watercolor or basically whatever medium you're using. I'm going to start with a mountain that is furthest away and it's going to appear lightest. And for the other one, I'm going to use the same medium coffee mix and just drop in a few and just add a few drops of the darkest coffee mix to make it a little, to make the overall look a little darker. And again, I'm going to let this dry now. For the next layer, the little hills here bear in mind that we have a palm tree here. I'm going to leave the space for the palm tree, white and paint around it. And just like we did with the second volcano, I'm going to drop in some dark mix of coffee to make this layer a little darker. If you use a hairdryer to dry the coffee, makes sure to not get too close to the paper with a hairdryer. Otherwise you might end up with splashes a coffee everywhere. For the next layer, we have a palm tree on this side again. And I'm going to leave out some whitespace for that one too. While this is drying, we can continue to the bottom of the page and grab our dark coffee makes, fill out the plant. While I'm painting the leaf shapes, I thought I've mentioned something about the light fastness of coffee. Unlike other plant-based dyes and inks, coffee is pretty light fast. The coffee painting artists, Nancy Nichols says on her website that she has coffee paintings that she's kept for decades and she's not seeing any changes in the color, no fading. But if you want to be on the safe side, you can use some spray, UV archival spray to lock in the color. And you can keep your painting out of direct sunlight. For the waves, I'm first going to rinse my brush and some water. And then with the lightest coffee mix, paint some wavy lines. And I'm going to leave out some space here to create some highlights. Just continue to paint waves all across the paper. And then just like before, I'm going to drop in some of the darkest coffee, mix, some dots, some drops. But this time I'm not going to mix it. I'm just gonna leave it and see how it dries. I just realized that I forgot to paint the sun, grab the medium coffee mix, and fill out the circle. And that's it. For the palm tree. I'm going to use the darkest coffee mix and a number two round brush and paint some rough palm tree shapes. I will add details with the fine liner pen later, so I'm not too worried about being too accurate here. And yes, another round of drawing. Make sure everything is dry otherwise the fine liner will smear and get coffee clogged. Now that everything is fully dry, I'll add details with the fine liner pen. Let's start with the mountains. I really like how the coffee dried here. It already looks like a mountain ridge. I'll emphasize that by tracing that line and adding some zigzag lines going down the mountain. Like this. The lines shouldn't be too regular, tried to make them thicker and thinner and broader towards the top and skinnier and towards the bottom. You can do stippling to, for a shading effect. So basically just dot, dot, dotting with the pen. Do the same for the other mountain, but with less lines as this mountain is farthest away. When you use the fine liner pen on the darkest parts of the coffee paint, make sure not to press down too hard. Just lightly add some lines and shapes so you don't clog the pen. I'm adding wavy lines here with the white Jelly Roll pen to indicate the ocean water. Outline the plan shapes at the bottom of the painting. You can go into as much detail as you want, or you can keep it loose. The color leaves have an interesting net of veins. They don't start at the top, but here, and then branch off in three different directions. With the white Jelly Roll pen, I'm adding some dots and highlights to round up the painting. And we're done. Now for the really fun part. If removing the washi tape, and it's done. 8. Mahalo, thank you!: Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this class. If you like, you can connect with me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is the Aloha studios. If you'd like to know more about our corner coffee, please visit James Bean.us or you can connect with us on Instagram. It's James Bean dot coffee, my hello, and aloha.