Brown girl in the (coffee) ring

Show me a motion... Tra la la la la...

For The Summer of Colour we had an unexpected challenge - brown! Eek, reminds me of my school uniform. However, brown is actually very exciting because it allows me to incorporate a spot of staining into my picture. Paper was prepared by flinging hot and wet tea bags at it and then sprinkling with my new favourite coffee Kenco Millicano wholebean instant (from Arabica beans). This left me with an array of choices for names for this lass - Milli perhaps? Rica? Arabica?

Let's go for Rica (pronounced Reek-a) for to be honest she does smell a bit. There's a definite whiff of rich roasted bean about her!

So, once the beverage stain layers had dried, I added a little tissue paper here and there then sketched her in Inktense pencils before bringing all their lushness to life with water and paintbrush.

I'm torn between wondering if she has a 'pox' on her face or it's just an aged vintage feel...

Starting to feel the pressure to keep this portraiture up all summer, but now I've started I must finish. I wonder what colour we're going to have this week?

Just call me Beaker

Oh have I been having fun these past few days. Well, actually it has been quite a week. I've spent daylight hours writing until the keyboard starting bleeding, but come twilight and it's time to paint and, more specifically, experiment.

The Experimental Art course finally started and I came over all scientific. I even put my lab coat on and styled my hair like Beaker. Just as well I don't speak like him or you'd have trouble understanding.

I am actually very excited and all I've been doing is doodling and staining. I do however feel like a proper experimenter. Take yesterday for example, I sprinkled coffee granules on a sheet of paper torn from Country Living and dripped water on it. Not at first glance art. In fact, I had to warn my boyfriend against throwing it out. He wasn't the slightest bit surprised that a soggy sheet from a magazine drying out over a mug was part of one of my projects. Funny that...

I knew I'd do something with it and tonight, while fighting a feeling of restlessness, I scanned it, called over Dr Bunsen Honeydew and experimented. What do you think? Is it art?

Catch the week's experiments in my Flickr pool

And remind yourself just how funny Beaker & Bunsen are... they even get to experiment with coffee too!