Coffee and Love

If you know me at all, you know I love coffee!  I've loved it since high school.  There is no other scent or flavor that signals the morning for me. In college, my coffee maker was continuously brewing for me and my podmates. We didn't care what brand of coffee we used, we were only interested in the liquid fuel.

When I became a teacher, I started out taking a thermos of coffee. When that wasn't enough, I brought my own coffee make for my classroom. I remember my Chem 2 students were concerned for my health, so I assigned them to extract the amount of caffeine I was consuming a day. Needless to say, it was more than what was recommended.

The only time I quit drinking was during my pregnancies and during my nursing period. Most were shocked that I had more than one child. I rarely drank decaf because I thought the residue from the chemicals used to decaffeinate the coffee would be more harmful than the actual caffeine.  

Today, I use the Keurig. But I stopped buying the pods because you can't easily recycle them. So now, I use my handy attachment to make my own pods. I actually like making my pods because I can adjust the intensity of my brew. So with all this love for coffee, I was somewhat surprised that I had only done one art piece with a coffee theme before the one you see above.  Here's my previous one.

I think I'm going to do a series of these coffee-themed art.  Should be fun!

For today's piece, I used my new favorite art supply - Derwent Inktense Pencils.  These look like colored pencils, but they activate with water-based media and when dry, they are permanent because the pencil is ink-based.  One of my favorite techniques I use with Inktense is to activate with gesso, which produces a softer look.

If I had activated this with water, the color would have been much more intense.  Gesso, which is an acrylic base, is milky and gritty.  It's almost like using white paint with ink. 

Now it's time to add details and depth. I wasn't really going for realism, just to make it look plausible. For this, I used colored pencils.  Because I used gesso, the colored pencils go on darker. And I blended them with rubbing alcohol.  What's nice about using rubbing alcohol is that it has enough water that it will also activate the remaining Inktense. The result is what you see above.  

The quote is a German Proverb. I chose this after reading my friend, Brad's blog post on Wednesday. When the relationship is new, the spark is always there. And when you've been married for 17 years sometimes you have to stoke the embers to get the fire going again. 

Time for another cup of coffee.