Espresso

Espresso

A digital copy of my coffee painting sketchbook

CC BY 4.0 by Bart Rogiers

This project is basically a continuation of my Inktober 2019 adventure, with a somewhat expanded toolset, but still with coffee and ink as the main medium. I use a Moleskine Pocket Watercolor Notebook now, and this website is basically a digital copy of it. The source files are 1200 dpi scans, with minimal editing to get rid of the page boundaries etc. This should allow experimenting with larger prints in due time, as I love the textures I obtain here, and would love to see what they do at a larger scale. Hope you enjoy these pages as much as I enjoy creating them!

Leo

Leo

Couple of lions. The coffee and red ballpoint work great together here!

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Doe

Doe

Trying some annotations here. Works well I think. Should try this more! Also, I learned a thing or two about rabbits …

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Bald eagle

Bald eagle

Eagle, with quite some splatter and a few abstract elements, in an attempt to loosen up my style a bit. Also started sketching/inking with ballpoints here.

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Camera

Camera

Old camera. Trying 3-point perspective here, but didn’t really think it through. Got ‘How to draw’ from Scott Robertson and Thomas Bertling for Christmas, so that should improve in time I guess. Also first time I am really not satisfied with the scan quality. Colour has been an issue from the start, but clearly light watery washes (top right) do not get digitized very well …

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Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne

Study of Rossetti’s Proserpina, in which he used Jane Morris as his model, similar to his painting of Mnemosyne, the Greek goddess of memory, and mother of the nine Muses. Contrary to both of his paintings, she is depicted here with a twig of rosemary, which is often associated with positive effects on memory.

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Drifting

Drifting

Evening sky with a ship in front of it. Love the straight horizon (masking tape), geometric shape of the background (note to self, try more of this), and use of negative space for the ocean.

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Pumpkins

Pumpkins

Something for Halloween.

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Trunk

Trunk

The second case of R package hex logo driven art (‘Palette’ was in fact the real first one I think), depicting an axe in a trunk. First time I was deliberately testing the dry brush technique I believe, now still mainly visible in the background.

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Balance

Balance

How to balance social distancing vs social contact? Something on the minds of people all around the globe most of this year. The ripples are a metaphor for the different waves we experienced, and the ones that are probably still to come. The nakedness refers to the fact that everybody is affected by this global health crisis. The crossed fingers refer to the failed leadership in many places, which makes some people can only hope for the best. First time using some splatter here. Also love the result of pencil + coffee only (no ink) for the bodies.

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Wheels

Wheels

Trying a motorised vehicle here. Not very succesful I think.

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Three wise homonids

Three wise homonids

A take at the three wise monkeys. No colour added here. Coffee and ink work great for these subjects.

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Palette

Palette

Second trial with colour. Love how the pencil blends with the coffee, the resulting textures and traces of the original pencil strokes that persist.

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Study

Study

First trial with some colour. Not great, but I learned a thing or two.

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Cock-a-doodle-doo

Cock-a-doodle-doo

Peter Pan / Tinker Bell fan art, by request of the kids.

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Brushes

Brushes

A first trial, using the three coffee mixes, the fountain, gel and brush pens.

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Textures

Textures

Some tests, and addition of a selection of water-soluble colour pencils, to enable adding some colour whenever I feel like it.

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Coffee as paint

Coffee as paint

Testing how the coffee and coffee-ink mixes behave on the Moleskine Watercolor paper.

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The tools

The tools

I started off with this set of tools.

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