Welcome! This blog post features a guided tutorial of how to create a landscape painting using a unique art medium: coffee! This activity helps artists to build skills using the elements of art SPACE & VALUE, deepen knowledge of ATMOSPHERIC PERSPECTIVE, and explore how to use natural ingredients to blend your own color pigments. In this tutorial, artists are guided to create a misty forest with a featured silhouette; however, artists can create endless possibilities of creative solutions to this activity.
* Hey educators! Scroll below to purchase this ready-for-class instructional lesson.*
Materials:
- Instant coffee powder
- Paint brush
- Palette
- Watercolor or wet medium art paper
- Water
- Painter’s tape
- Pencil
Step 1:
Tape down your watercolor paper to avoid warping when you add wet medium.
Very lightly use a pencil to draw a a glowing light source: moon. The inside of the tape can serve as a great template if you’d like a full moon.
Very lightly use pencil to draw a horizon line near the middle of the paper.
Step 2:
Blend the coffee with water to mix a light brown pigment. Paint the sky a light value and then paint the ground a bit darker.
You may want to include a bit of a lighter value on the ground where the moon would create highlights.
Step 3:
Mix a slightly darker value of brown for the first row of trees. This row will be the furthest trees off in the distance. Render them lighter, less detailed, close to the horizon line, smaller, and thinner.
Step 4:
Mix a slightly darker value of brown for the second row of trees. Create these trees a bit darker, larger, and closer to the bottom of the paper.
Step 5:
Mix a darker value of brown for the third row of trees. These trees will be the darkest, largest, most detailed, and closest to the bottom of the paper.
It may be helpful to build multiple layers to create the darkest value.
Step 6:
Add some cast shadows on the ground. If the moon is in the middle, consider the direction the shadows will be cast on the left and right side.
Final step:
Add a silhouette object/image of your choice into your composition (such as the bat seen here). Strive for a very dark value, and consider layering to achieve the darkness.
Student examples:
*Hey teachers!* Click here for my TpT shop if you’re interested in this lesson, which features a full slideshow presentation, specific grading rubric.
Thanks for checking out this blog post. I would love to see your creation if you use these steps to make a landscape painting using coffee. Feel free to tag me on Instagram and possibly get featured in this site! Also, please follow Make a Mark Studios on Facebook to keep up with the latest posts! Thanks in advance!
-Stephanie Villiotis, creator of Make a Mark Studios