Enjoy Coffee-Inspired Art Online
In line with the expanding link between coffee, art and the Internet, a British newspaper has reviewed what sites can be enjoyed online, while supping a cup of one’s favourite brew in the comfort of the home environment.
One such online collection of coffee-inspired art is Coffee Creations (coffee-art.com), a site from US artist Karen Eland, whose work is created using solely coffee and water. Eland’s fondness for art dates back to her childhood, where a portrait class propelled her towards her present career. In terms of her appreciation for coffee, this stems from the late Kaldi’s Coffeehouse located in New Orleans, where the artist would go to sketch her fellow locals. The link between coffee and art was made in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she began painting with Nordaggio Coffee’s espresso in 1998.
Another similarly-inspired site is Coffee Art (justcoffeeart.com), which showcases the talent of artists Andy and Angel, who also produce their work using just coffee and water. Having painted with coffee for a number of years, the pair, Andrew Saur and Angel Sarkela-Saur, started on this track while planning their first exhibition in a Minnesota coffee house. Wanting to showcase something unique, they thought about using coffee as their medium. Having tried using the bean itself to sketch with, as well as using coffee grounds for pastels, but not achieving much success, the artists decided upon coffee as a watercolour.
Artists have been using coffee as washes for their sketches for a while. However the use of the substance to create darker hues and entire pieces of work is much more of a recent and emerging trend.