My cup of joe

8x10" 

Cheapo instant coffee wash on typing paper, I think, or was it the back of my excise tax. 

The Old Mill in Winter

Folgers not in my cup wash

8x10" on an archival piece of high grade drawing paper, 

or was it used copy paper, .. whatever. 

The Snowman

Pen, ink, plus coffee washes

8x10" on plain old crummy paper

 

                                 

Coffee. Its not just for drinking anymore. This blog is directed to all those inquisitive minds who need to know the behind the art curtain secrets of how to make a coffee based painting.
  First and foremost, ... make a pot of coffee. Drink some.
Now your ready to go to work as a coffee artist. But, just for your information, the kind you drink, is probably not the kind your going to use to paint with. I came upon the coffee art medium when I was at college. We'd sit it the student union of campus and doodle on napkins while having our java. Mind you we were art students. Not your ordinary variety of chemistry majors. or nuclear physicists. Bona fide living on the edge, bohemian art students, playing with our napkins and food at the campus center while other people tried to look serious with their books ajar. (yeah, sure)
  Well anyway, we'd pencil or pen in an image, and then using our fingers, take some coffee from our cups and wash the tone in. Just like Neanderthals having an artfest in a cave. I must admit, we did some pretty cool work on these napkins. Talouse Lautrec would have been proud.
  Napkins took the wash pretty good, and what helped was the lousy thicker than mud coffee we were drinking.
 But that was then, and this is now. I've evolved a few notches up from the primitive coffee methods we were using and have refined it somewhat. I have found that you don't have to boil a pot of mud coffee, in order to get a good wash. The secret?? (drum roll... ta ta ta ta da dum de dum rat tat tat! )
.. The cheapest crummy instant coffee you can find.  Drop 3 or 4 teaspoons into a quarter cup of hot water and you've got a good sienna wash. If you want a more umber type of color, use Columbian or burn it a bit like the campus center coffee I was telling you about.
 This is not something new by the way. Early man was using this same kind of dye 10, 000 yrs ago in the form of plants, bark,  nut shells and berries. Its no different. Its coffee dye.
 Its a win win. You can have your cup of Joe, and paint with it too.
Just make sure you drink what you want before you go and start dipping your brush into it.
Got Joe?? Get some. Make art.
Cheers!

The place is somewhere I wouldn't mind being. 

The composition for it came right off the canvas as I was messing around with the paint. 

Maybe my subconscious kicked in.

Or maybe, its a remnant from a dream.

But, I do know, I could easily fit in here, and with my coffee in hand, and paintbrushes at the ready. 

And I'll bet they have some really cool hiking trails along those mountains. 

Mountain Village in Winter
11x14
acrylic on paper
available at russpotak.etsy.com  

I painted what I needed to say. Sometimes painting is a language. Its a lot easier to say it in this way, than try to talk it out. There is a  life beyond mere words when an artist is a channel for currents of expression and communication. Things said in paint, can reach a lot of people. It can mean many things to many people. One thing to one person, something else to another. This is what thrills me the most about art. It reaches beyond. It taps into something else. Between logic, sensation, spirit, and intellect. Its got them all covered and more. With this piece, it has implications to me. 

I see an angel of light following this person. The sky has stars in it, but also other things, maybe of a dimension not seen but nevertheless there. Forces in operation. All these things going on around us, but not revealed to the common observer. That why I painted this. Its laid bare here for everyone to see. The figure walking in the foreground, is secure and protected. A sense of well being exists, but he does not necessarily know from what, or where. A special night perhaps. An answered prayer. A possible intervention of spirit and message. A night of wonder. 

A Night of Wonder
11x14
original painting,
acrylic on 140 lb paper
Signed lower left

So this is how it happened. This painting that is. I was just going into my favorite coffee haunt, and minding my own business. I was sipping on one of those unheard of coffee types nowadays. Its called just coffee, black. Just your basic cup of Columbian Joe. 

So, as I was having my java, I couldn't help but scan the place with my artistic x-ray vision (which always somehow translates into paint.) As I was just staring blankly into the walls, I realized how colors are like the fabric that hold shapes together. And lines appear as shapes collide with each other. The ladies that were having their coffee, were really just a  compositional element that added interest to an already shapeful room.  (shapeful? is that a word?.. it is now.) So, I took out my trusty pen, and started to record my visual scans. I finished my coffee, and upon arriving back in my studio lair, .. translated the experience to paint, and consequently, this painting. 

I think the women probably wondered why I kept staring towards their general direction. Next time I think perhaps, I should wear some "joe cool"  sunglasses so I won't be so conspicuous.

The Coffee House
11x14
acrylic on 140 lb paper

available at: russpotak.etsy.com 

This is the kind of painting that tells a story. I was looking at one of the photos I took during a Maine coastline visit, and started to once again feel the sea air, the sound of the gulls and the creek of wooden vessels against the docks. I began to experience and feel it once again, and aimed to convey that with my paint. Not tell you how the photographed looked, but rather how it felt to be there. This is how I approach subjects. I need to impress the feelings of how the subject affected me onto the canvas. What I don't attempt, is to reiterate the obvious. 

  So this painting tells of the sea, the sky the fishing boats and the vitality of the goings on, in this active little harbor. I used the paint  freely and energetically to channel these feeling through. 

  I hope you too, can feel the moment here in this salty cove via my painting. 

11x14"
acrylic on 140 lb paper
Maine Harbor Docks
russpotak.etsy.com

8x10
acrylic on canvas panel
available at: russpotak.etsy.com

I didn't really know how this piece would evolve. It was the process of making art as I go along. One thing leads to another, and another, then, .. you stand back, then get back to it,  and keep at it until what you have, is something you want to keep.  Thats how this one started and finished. Just doing art. No nets, no wires. Just paint, and a blank canvas. 

Woodland Autumn
9x12" on panel mounted on a 12x16 eggshell white backing
mixed medium
Overall presentation is 12 x 16"
This work has a wood cradle behind it and hangs without a frame
It will hang offset from the wall by 3/4" to give it dimension.
Available at:  russpotak.etsy.com

Started something new. Not sure I know all the reasons why I paint this way, or that way. I do know that at times I need to get into my work in a different way. Like paint wasn't enough for what I wanted to say in this piece. I needed more medium. I am beginning to realize that everything can be used to "paint" with, and the expression of a work shouldn't be limited by the "way", or the "method". Sometimes paint is enough. Sometimes its not. I needed more this time. Next time, maybe not. Art does not follow "rules". Its abhors them. Its one of those things, that the more you try to restrain it, the more it wants its freedom. Kind of like people, I guess. Anyway, I grabbed glue, modeling medium, wood, paint and whatever, in this piece. It said what I needed. And, I was content with it when it was finished. What will I do next? Thats the beauty of it. I never really know what will come off the easel.