Coffee-Themed Artist Trading Cards and Etudes for Painting Practice

 On Friday, I met with my art exchange group to share and trade artist trading cards (ATCs) on the theme of coffee or tea. ATCs are art cards the same size as sports trading cards — 2.5" by 3.5" — made purely for fun and to be traded in convivial gatherings.  

Several of us chose to coffee-stain some watercolor paper as the substrate for either a collage or drawing/painting, with varying results. One person immersed the paper in a strong solution of instant coffee, adding extra granules for a grainy speckled effect; another dribbled the dregs from her drip coffee pot on the paper over a period of several days, plus setting the cup on it to form coffee rings like on a coaster—a variation of which two others employed. I had covered my paper with used paper coffee filters, immersed it in water, and added coffee grounds to the mix, expecting it to produce a splotchy brown result. 

Five "coffee" ATCs and one with a tea party theme. The middle one features the Ojibwe word for coffee, which translates as "black medicine liquid," she noted on the back.

I was wrong. My method barely stained the paper at all. So I tore up the coffee filters and glued them onto the paper to completely cover it to make my background. Once the surface was no longer tacky, I placed it under a stack of encyclopedias overnight to flatten it, then cut it into ATCs.

I used a brown pen to write on the background, mostly listing the various kinds of espresso drinks and then just copying other text from the website where I got the espresso words. Though not truly asemic writing, since it consisted of regular words, it was effectively that because it was meant to just add some background patterns and not really to be read. 

I was going to make a collage/mosaic rendition of our stovetop espresso pot, but quickly realized that would be too fussy for such a small format, especially making seven of them! (There were seven participants, but one couldn't make it to the meeting.) So I altered my photo of the pot to make it more colorful and give it a grainy texture, printed it in multiples on plain paper, and used the pieces I had already cut to replace the handle and, except for the above example, the knob on top. 

Oh . . . never mind. I saved the pattern pieces, though, in case I wanted to try another time. Maybe slightly larger.

Painting Etudes

Last week I wrote about noticing what I called asemic patterns, that is, patterns on various objects that brought to mind asemic writing. I thought I would try a little painting and drawing of those patterns, using the photos I took as inspiration. It's very challenging for me to extrapolate something abstract from something concrete, so I figure it's a good thing to practice. 

I started with the photo of my scarf, because the colors and texture are very appealing to me. I had to keep reminding myself that I'm painting the pattern, not the scarf!

Laying down some base color — the pattern, not the scarf 

 

. . . and some texture marks 

I don't consider the painting to be finished, but I might decide that I'm finished with it and move on to painting one of the other photos. I also have to remind myself that this is a practice exercise, an etude, not something that has to look polished and complete. Then again, I am feeling an urge to work on it some more.

Speaking of practice, I did remember that I wanted to practice my fine brushwork also, in the way of lettering, so I copied some of the exercises in the Speedball Handbook (which I introduced a couple of weeks ago). I guess if the scarf painting is an etude, this is like playing scales. (In case you haven't guessed, I did play a musical instrument in my school days, from fifth grade through high school. It was a cello.)

On my work table

I got a "restock request" from my friends at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts shop this week, for more of some of the zines that I consign there. 

Mini zines, which I call my tea zines for short, in various stages of assembly

I do not keep much of an inventory of finished works ready to go, preferring instead to make them as I need them. In order to facilitate that process, I fashioned several boxes, generally cut down from larger ones that once held envelopes and other supplies, to house components of zines, sometimes partially assembled to streamline the process of finishing them. Making boxes and organizing my various zines and other projects appeals to me as much as making the actual things. Sometimes more so. (Which can become just another way to procrastinate!)

Some of my ducks. In a row.

Recent Reading Just in Time for Easter

I am always intrigued by new scholarship surrounding the history of the religion I grew up with (Christianity), and especially sincere attempts to learn about the historical Jesus and his earliest followers. Like most Christians (I'm assuming), I had always thought there was a pretty straightforward narrative from the days following the resurrection that Western Christians will be celebrating this Sunday (Orthodox churches observe Easter on May 5), to the fourth century actions that formalized the institution of the Church in Europe.

But the scholars say not so fast! There were diverse schools of thought, faith and ideas in those early centuries, a great deal of which was revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered around the middle of the 20th century. A new book by Catherine Nixey, Heresy: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God, examines the diverse narratives surrounding Christianity's murky beginnings. It's given a thorough and thoughtful review in the New Statesman that serves up a bounty of food for thought for anyone who wants to better understand the unauthorized versions of the Church's complicated origins. 

A Few Final Words for this Week

I'm switching my blog publishing day to Tuesday because Monday is a better day for me to work on it than the weekend. Next Tuesday I hope to have more little paintings of patterns to show you (see how I'm stating an intention here?), and I'll tell you about a book I just picked up from the library, called The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, by Anne Trubek. 

I had to return my library copy of Asemic: The Art of Writing, by Peter Schwenger, which I first mentioned in this blog post. I couldn't renew it because someone else had requested it (was that you, by any chance?), so I decided to buy my own copy from Alibris, a non-Amazon site that many independent booksellers use. In truth, I was having to resist the urge to write in the book anyway, which is often the case with nonfiction—I want to write in the margins and add my own entries to the index and such. But it's nice when I can borrow it from the library first, to see if it's something I really want to own.