blah to TADA!

14 March 2012

The Coffee Painters

One summer in my youth, I took art lessons. In class, we learned how to draw things like still life, landscapes, and portraits using pencil, acrylic, and watercolor. Our teacher always asked, "Where is your light coming from?" or "What is the wind's direction?" Aside from understanding the basics of art, I think the greatest lesson I learned was to be observant of details.

It's been a while since I took out my sketchpad, but I haven't stopped admiring art -- on sidewalks, museums, and even on-line. I'm sharing a few with you, and the common thread here is that they're all painted using coffee!

Let's begin with painter Cheryl Buerhing from Tennessee who finds inspiration in God's creation:

"Magnolia" by Cheryl Buehring

"Birdhouse" by Cheryl Buehring

"Country Charm" by Cheryl Buehring

(the pink shades are made of beet juice & tumeric)

Luis E. Aparicio, based in Puerto Rico, makes these architectural sketches using coffee:

"Boulevard des Lices" by Luis E. Aparicio

"Cafarela en cuatro sombras" by Luis E. Aparicio

"Cafarela en Campechada I" by Luis E. Aparicio

Massimo Bernacchi, an artist based in Pisa, can custom-design portraits:

Portrait made with Italian coffee by Massimo Bernacchi

Portrait by Massimo Bernacchi; you have to

smell it to believe that it's made of coffee

Tasmania-based Samantha Dennis prefers instant coffee as a medium for portraiture:

"Portrait of a toddler painted with Coffee"

by Samantha Dennis

"Portrait of a man carrying coffee"

by Samantha Dennis

If you have the knack for painting and have some left-over coffee from breakfast, would you like to try out this technique? I think it's blah to TADA!

13 March 2012

Coffee Sleeves

I've lined up a couple of coffee projects this week. You like coffee, don't you? I think it's TADA! It smells wonderful and is energizing. But there are things left over after consumption, like paper cups or these cardboard sleeves:

These sleeves protect your fingers from the hot liquid

that warm up the paper cup.

I like that they're made of recycled fiber

and are compostable.

But realistically, we won't carry this around to use

for our next cup, right? So here's what I

would do to turn 'em from blah to TADA!:

TADA! I decorated it with paper cut-outs!

This one has a cherry blossom theme.

Do you like the 3-D effect?

Polka-dots are cute, too.

Ink and rubber stamps spell out a quirky request.

And here's how I would re-use them:

When giving a reusable mug as a present, I would use this sleeve in lieu of packaging it in gift wrap. I would write my message at the back, the same way baristas write your name when you order a drink.

Or I would "wrap" a bottle of beer in it for a colleague who's had a hard day. TADA!

12 March 2012

A Cup of Coffee

Happy New Week Folks! This week is all about coffee. I'll leave it at that for now. Coffee,

one of the world's favorite beverages, is a TADA! in itself. How can we make it even more TADA!? You'll have to tune in to find out.

Let me start with something I saw recently, which literally stopped me in my tracks. I was cutting through Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan when, at the glass-enclosed base of the Flat Iron building (called the "Prow"), there was an on-going exhibit.

It was called Hypergraphia: The Cup Drawings

The artist, Gwyneth Leech, transformed these used, blah coffee cups into...

...TADA! works of art

About 800 or so coffee cups with unique hand-drawn designs were hung on fishing string, making for a mesmerizing installation.

What was even cooler? The artist was there! Part of the experience was seeing her fully immersed in cup-drawing, even inviting passers-by to join her inside to draw on a cup or two.

Miss Leech, a painter by profession, began drawing on empty paper cups during meetings in 2007. She didn't have any sketchpads on hand, but she had a coffee cup. Why not?

To amass this collection, this is what she did:

"I save the cups from the hot drinks I buy and occasionally collect them from other artists with whom I meet for tea or coffee around town. I wash and dry them and record on the bottom the date, place and occasion, as well as the drink that was consumed, thus capturing the social moment just passed."

She also invited people to bring their used cups to the art space, provided they were washed beforehand, no Styrofoam cups were accepted, and the bottom of the cup had to declare the name of the cup donor and the date the beverage was consumed (the cup now had some history!).

I wonder what information she found out and how she'd use them.

Here are a few of my favorites:

"I am a painter living in New York City, always on the lookout for the extraordinary ordinary," is how she describes herself. All I can say is, extraordinary work Miss Leech, truly extraordinary!

You may learn more about Miss Leech through her website, Facebook page and blog.