Hmm.. the aroma of a freshly brewed coffee can be so refreshing, isn’t it? Sniffing coffee beans can almost reset your sense of smell. When we sample different perfumes and a particular strong smell gets to our head, it lingers. How to clear it? Take a few coffee beans in a cup and smell them. After sometime smell another perfume.
We can creatively use coffee for many things other than just sipping a nice cup of coffee. You may have come across or tried these. In this post I am sharing three artistic creative ideas of arts and crafts with coffee. I have tried my hand at all the three and they can be wonderful creative outlets for anyone, especially coffee lovers. It is the skill and material that make this art unique.
The first one is using coffee beans – I had some coffee beans left in the pack. They were way past their expiry date on the packet. I wasn’t sure if these were safe for consumption. So I decided to do some art craft with them. The method is selecting a drawing of your choice and creating a design by pasting these beans on the paper. It’s like ‘button craft’. Draw the design and paste the coffee beans. Jute pieces or jute strings make a good combination with it.
Alternatively they can be decoratively filled in bottles or jars to make showpieces at kitchens, coffee shops and restaurants. Choose a simple design with distinct lines. The artwork can be framed in a box frame and kept as wall art. However, Coffee beans are natural and perishable. They can get infested in future and the artwork may get spoilt. This thought made me go a step further.
I made coasters with coffee beans and resin. We can use the coffee beans with resin to make decorative clocks, trays, coasters, jar lids and everything else that we make with resin otherwise. This way, they have a protective covering and they are air tight. Do check my posts on resin art for more ideas. It is the same process. We use coffee beans just like any other embellishments or materials. We can combine it with resin colours and other materials too.
Second one is Coffee Painting. Yes! We can paint with coffee just like we paint with any other paint. The painting technique is very similar to watercolour painting but in monochrome. ‘Sepia tones’ is the correct term used for artworks in shades of brown. We often use this palette to show something as ancient or old or aged.
I used to make ancient historic looking scrolls using this method. To make it, we take a sheet of paper and paint with coffee paint. The light yellow brown will make the paper look aged. Darker paint on the edges and lighter in the centre. Cover the whole page. Blocks or patches of dark light shades look natural. We need a thick paper for this, more than 200gsm or at least 200gsm watercolour paper. Give the edges a slight burn with candle. Write the scroll in calligraphy to make it look authentic. It could be a treasure map too!
If you have artistic skills, we can actually paint with coffee. Take two bowls. In the first one add one spoon coffee powder and two spoons water. In the second bowl for a darker thick concentrate take one spoon coffee powder and one spoon water. Mix it. The painting and blending art style is like painting with watercolour. Other than that painting with coffee is a very different experience. To create the coffee paint we need instant coffee powder. I used Nescafé powder as it blends well in water. No lumps or chunks.
Creating an actual artwork using coffee requires prior experience and skills in painting. That is why I suggested the scroll design which is very easy and will always look good. I recently bought some art material from ‘Creative Hand Art Materials’. They sent me a small sample pack for watercolour paper. The paper is 300GSM. I painted the Bird Artwork on it. The scenery is painted in my regular Art journal.
Third and last is ‘Latte Art’. It is a very skilled art but many coffee shops let you try it. The coffee is first poured in a particular manner and then designs are created on the surface. Originally, ‘Pouring’ was the only technique to create designs. Designs were created by pouring the cream in a particular way. Now there are more techniques in Latte Art. ‘The Leaf’ is the first basic design in Latte Art.
‘Latte’ is coffee with cream or milk and ‘Art’ because we are creating designs, hence ‘Latte Art’. The easiest technique is to use a stencil. We place the stencil on top of the coffee cup and dust it with coffee powder through a strainer.
Further after the coffee is poured we use toothpicks or the tool to create enhanced artworks. The drop is a dot, we drag the point in a single direction to create the designs. We can dip the point in cream or coffee concentrate to add little details.
This swan is a combination of the pouring method and using the tool. After the leaf is poured, the art is then enhanced using the tool. Sometimes, we directly use the tool to paint with cream. They also add food colour to make colourful artworks.
The most complex of these I feel, is the 3D Latte Art. Here, they create 3D structures on the coffee surface with cream and coffee concentrate or chocolate sauce. 3D Latte Art is very Popular in Japan. It was started by a Japanese Artist. Cute things are always liked in Japan. Sharing a few pictures from the internet below. Do browse and look up for more. I don’t hold any rights in them, it is just to show the readers what I am talking about.
Did you know, we get printing machines that print designs on coffee? A cream gun that makes the white cream for art. There is a lot to explore if you are a coffee lover, isn’t it. Although the cream flattens as time passes, I am sure you will agree that these creations make the coffee more alluring and tempting. They are very fascinating to watch as well as try.
The main ingredient is the cream. Creating that at home is difficult. I have tried it with the beater at home but it doesn’t give the same effect. We need the coffee machine or it’s tools. Best to let the Barista pour it for us and then try the designs along with them. That way they prepare the base for us, making it easy.
After that admire your creation, click as many pictures and then drink the coffee. As simple as that! It is a fun and relaxing activity to do on a weekend. Try it for your next date at a coffee shop, if you want to make it more interesting or if you are dating an artist. Hehe.. of course, you can try it otherwise too!
Isn’t it amazing how we can use something so regular from our daily kitchen to make such beautiful artworks. Have an Arty week!
NMartworks 