T Stands For Second Thursday Tutorial, Part 1

 

I realize I'm a bit early sharing this post.  I shared so many tutorials last month, I didn't feel the need to create one for the second Thursday of the month.  And because there are so many, many photos and techniques this week, I've decided to break it into two posts.  It will also allow more drying time for the pages, several of which took nearly three days to dry.

For all of these techniques, I will be using 90 lb watercolor paper.  You can see the specifics here.

For all of these techniques, I have included these specific products.  I will add others as needed, but all will take these. From back to front:

Used pie tin

Instant coffee that got damp, then dried in one mass in my basement studio

Parchment paper (or any product that will keep excess water off your table)

Watercolor papers cut to 6 X 9 inches (15,24 X 22,9 cm)

For this first technique, we are going to do a bit of blowing.  I have included a spoon and a straw. 

 

 For the first technique, I withdrew blobs of coffee from the jar using the spoon.

Using the straw, I blew into it over the various blobs of coffee.

I had to remember to keep rotating the paper so the blobs were distributed.  Some of the coffee blobs overlapped each other.  I tried to wipe up the excess coffee using a paper (kitchen) towel (which I didn't think to show).

The next technique is quite simple.  I accidentally got some excess coffee on the paper when I was transferring the coffee to the pie tin, but didn't feel that would hurt anything.

 I pressed the bottom of the take-out cup to the coffee in the pie tin and stamped circles on the watercolor paper.

I swiped the next watercolor paper on the parchment paper to remove excess coffee.  I wanted the effect.  I have added another "stamp" from my stash of things to stamp with.

I was really very happy with the marks this made.

I couldn't have been more pleased.

Then I turned the "stamp" over and stamped the other side at a 90 degree angle.

This made me very happy, too.

 

I look forward to seeing this one after it's dry.

These three are finally dry.  I see a great deal of potential for great backgrounds.

 

Now let's play with a little resist.  I'm using sea salt, but I might throw in a bit of rock salt, too.

I have to add coffee to the watercolor paper first, though.

After adding the sea salt, I applied more coffee so it would saturate the salt.

While the other paper was drying, I decided to play with my food.

Rice absorbed the coffee nicely.

Once the rice was dry, and it had been removed from the paper,

this became my favorite design.  Personally, I'd like to make about a dozen of these.

What was possibly more interesting was when I turned the watercolor paper over.  The pattern on the back was note-worthy, too. 

Who knew rice could be so interesting from an art standpoint.

Finally, it was time to remove the sea salt from the watercolor paper.

 

This pattern was interesting, but what I was most pleased with

was how the coffee sparkled when I moved it back and forth in my hand.  Sadly, the camera doesn't pick up that sparkle.  When I showed them to my friend Scott, he asked if I added glitter to the page.  I told him no, that was the magic of the salt.

Ruminations:

1.  I need an area where I can dry my papers.  I had to wait while some dried because I didn't have enough space on my table and counter to dry all of these at once.

2.  I used a paper/kitchen towel to wipe up excess coffee, but when I did, I often disturbed the pattern.  I'm sure there is a magic amount of coffee that should be used with this paper, but I haven't found it yet.

3.  By far and away, my favorite was the watercolor paper and rice.

I don't expect you to create a tutorial, or even make coffee infused papers.  However, I'd still love for you to share your own drink inspired post this week.  It can be gifts you received, photos, a place you visited, movies, postcards, mail art, junk mail, catalogs, books, sketches, mixed media, drawings, paintings, tags, scrapbooking, or other art that is digital, hybrid, or traditional, as long as it in some way relates back to a drink, any drink.  Regardless, please share below and Bleubeard and I, along with the rest of the T gang will be by to visit.   Please link only your T post and not your blog in general.  Bleubeard would like to remind you that old photos are acceptable because they may be taken any time, not just on Tuesday and most assuredly not just this year.  

 

 

 

 When this post goes live, you'll be able to access it forever on my Tutorials page.