No Crying Over Spilled Coffee
This exercise is a lot like the beginner exercise "Connect the Dots," with the obvious exceptions of overall size, the time it takes and the addition of pools of different color tones to the mix. Same premise, just like cloud gazing, you look for a picture in random shapes and patterns. Right brain all the way, get that imagination fired up.
For this activity, you'll need paper (preferably, separate from your sketchbook,) either a soft lead pencil or a decent pen (I prefer pen for this, it's sharper, and it doesn't tempt you to add as much of your own shading,) and some coffee. In reality, you can use any kind of liquid that'll stain the page, but the way this was suggested to me was with coffee, and I like the look. Also, as I'm writing this, I'm stuck in Iraq and I don't have access to all sorts of neat art supplies, whereas coffee is plentiful.
Take your blank page somewhere where you aren't worried about making a mess. Lay it down and from a height of a couple feet or more, dump the coffee all over it, pretty much to your own satisfaction. I think it works best if most of the page is covered. The height you're dumping the coffee from yields varying spray patterns, and again, there's no standard for this, you pretty much just do it however you want. I did three pages at one time so I had a little variety to choose from.
Let your newly stained page dry. This may take some time, depending on where you are and where you have to set the paper so it doesn't get all messed up. As I said, I'm in the sandbox at the moment, so I let my pages sit outside for 30 seconds and it was dry. Resist the urge to flatten it out, the pools of liquid will dry eventually, and the more variety there is to the overall tone and shading of the stain pattern, the more fun this is.
Once the page is dry, you're ready to start drawing. Choose the page you like the most (if you stained more than one,) and turn it around this way and that, until an image emerges that strikes your fancy. Apologize to your fancy for allowing it to be struck, and then spend some quiet time being ashamed of yourself for even having a fancy to be struck in the first place. Then you're ready to start adding detail to your stained page, fleshing out the image you saw in the patterns of the spill.
Like cloud gazing and the Connect the Dots exercise, this activity relies on your imagination and creativity. Unlike Connect the Dots, this is more skill-centric and time consuming, but ultimately worth it. Not only does it yield a different style than what you're probably accustomed to, but it also teaches you to rely more strongly on your creative instincts and encourages you to see things in more than just one way. The required skill and addition of varying tones of color are what make this an intermediate activity.
For this activity, you'll need paper (preferably, separate from your sketchbook,) either a soft lead pencil or a decent pen (I prefer pen for this, it's sharper, and it doesn't tempt you to add as much of your own shading,) and some coffee. In reality, you can use any kind of liquid that'll stain the page, but the way this was suggested to me was with coffee, and I like the look. Also, as I'm writing this, I'm stuck in Iraq and I don't have access to all sorts of neat art supplies, whereas coffee is plentiful.
Take your blank page somewhere where you aren't worried about making a mess. Lay it down and from a height of a couple feet or more, dump the coffee all over it, pretty much to your own satisfaction. I think it works best if most of the page is covered. The height you're dumping the coffee from yields varying spray patterns, and again, there's no standard for this, you pretty much just do it however you want. I did three pages at one time so I had a little variety to choose from.
Let your newly stained page dry. This may take some time, depending on where you are and where you have to set the paper so it doesn't get all messed up. As I said, I'm in the sandbox at the moment, so I let my pages sit outside for 30 seconds and it was dry. Resist the urge to flatten it out, the pools of liquid will dry eventually, and the more variety there is to the overall tone and shading of the stain pattern, the more fun this is.
Once the page is dry, you're ready to start drawing. Choose the page you like the most (if you stained more than one,) and turn it around this way and that, until an image emerges that strikes your fancy. Apologize to your fancy for allowing it to be struck, and then spend some quiet time being ashamed of yourself for even having a fancy to be struck in the first place. Then you're ready to start adding detail to your stained page, fleshing out the image you saw in the patterns of the spill.
Like cloud gazing and the Connect the Dots exercise, this activity relies on your imagination and creativity. Unlike Connect the Dots, this is more skill-centric and time consuming, but ultimately worth it. Not only does it yield a different style than what you're probably accustomed to, but it also teaches you to rely more strongly on your creative instincts and encourages you to see things in more than just one way. The required skill and addition of varying tones of color are what make this an intermediate activity.
This is one example of what I came up with doing this one. I forgot to take a picture of the raw spill, and didn't even think about it until I'd started outlining what I saw, but you get the idea. Click on either image to see an enlarged view.
Since that first coffee stain drawing, I've discovered that, while time consuming and relatively labor-intensive, these pictures generally turn out friggin' awesome. Here are some more I've done. Too add a bit of color, I've found food coloring and Kool-Aid work great. Also, for more defined edges on the spills, any art store sells watercolor paper. It's meant to keep liquid from bleeding, and the heavier weight helps limit the rippling of the paper.
