Floating Lemons

Bird Coffee Cup Watercolour (finally!)

I'm not quite sure why it's taken so long to pick up the brushes. There's obviously some element of fear involved here - probably of being disappointed in the end result, as it definitely won't look the same as it does in my mind. But that perfectionist editor within was finally tucked away into a dark corner, and the paints were brought out, and so here's the result.

It's rough, simple, very amaterish, but it's a start. One of my cups for morning coffee!

 

 

And here are a few of the steps (in reverse) I took once the sketch was done in pencil and the brush tentatively picked up,:

 

 

I used watercolours bought from the supermarket for this little test piece, painted into my Seawhite of Brighton square sketchbook from Jackson's. FInally, here's the photograph of the 'real' cup in order to do true justice to its real artist. I'm not sure who that is, so if anybody knows, please do tell. I bought the cup from the markets in Bangalow, Australia a few years back and love her work. You'll see a few more of her cups in the near future.

 

Wishing all of you a triumphant day! Cheers.

 

Text Design: Coffee and Cupcakes

"Coffee makes it possible to get out of bed. Cupcakes make it worthwhile." - unknown author.

I worked on this yesterday, so haven't had a chance to properly clean it up. You're getting pretty much the raw deal here! I'd normally finish it off by moving around and smoothing out the words and letters, but as I haven't the time at the moment, here's what I've managed to complete so far ...

I started off with a very rough pencil sketch in my Moleskine squared journal:

 

 

The quotation seemed perfect for my Coffee Cupcake illustration, so I printed it out and glued it on as a guide around which the text would flow. I then inked it in, ready for scanning:

 

 

This is the scan, and here's where I'd work on the final cleanup, the icing on the cake if you will, and the addition of decorative elements. Not done. Let's hope it still tastes good:

 

 

I'm looking at it here and can see all the mistakes I'd love to fix ... making some of the text less angular, some of the spaces between words less awkward ... when I finally get around to it I'll post the cleaned version! Right now it's time for my second cup of morning coffee. Cupcakes, anyone? Cheers.

 

Text Design: Coffee is Cool

I'm not a huge coffee drinker. It's my morning cuppa, definitely, and I always order coffee rather than tea when I'm seated at a cafe somewhere, but really, the rest of the day is spent gurgling down numerous cups of tea ... Still, I've become rather addicted to that morning wake-up jolt, and I'm lucky enough to have a friend staying who makes a mean caffeine that tastes far better than anything I could brew up -- so I've been inspired to sketch out a little typographical homage to it.

I've recorded a bit of the behind the scenes process for you. It started out as a sketch in my moleskine graph paper journal:

 

 

Then I cleaned it up in Photoshop and 'painted' it black:

 

 

And finally readjusted it and added a drop shadow and colour, though I'm still not 100% satisfied with it yet, so I may play around a bit more till I'm happy with the colour choices:

 

 

Suggestions, constructive criticism and comments, are, as always, extremely welcome! Hope you coffee addicts out there enjoy it. Cheers.

Original typography © Mariana Musa

Coffee Cup & Red Crab

I've taken a bit of a break to spend time with visiting family, so am now trying to catch up with myself ... The above Coffee Cup drawing is an older one I cleaned up, and the Red Crab below a new one I sketched out in marker pens and then repainted in Corel Painter 12. Working on a mini project right now and a pencil drawing so will be back soon! Cheers.

 

 

Coffee Cup at Floating Lemons @Zazzle

Red Crab at Floating Lemons @Zazzle

Colored Pencils & Red Coffee Cupcake

These little digital doodles of mine are nothing particulary special as far as Art (with a capital A) is concerned, I know. They aren't meant to be. They are bits of colourful fun that pop into my mind throughout the day, are quickly sketched down into my book with marker pens, scanned in, and then digitally painted over whenever I have the time to do so.

I like them. They're cheerful and bright ... and perhaps they're trying to tell me that somewhere deep within this rather cynical husk there's still, rather well-hidden perhaps, a sense of uncomplicated joy left.

Above is Colored Pencils and below is a Red Coffee Cupcake. Enjoy.

 

Coffee Break collage & Yasmin

Things are a bit slow around here ... I'm still recuperating. The good news is that I am free of infection and therefore finally free of antibiotics. But my neck is still a bit sore from the operation and my foot still somewhat swollen -- apparently it has been so traumatized that it will take another month or so to fully recover! I hobble along quite well though, so am at least no longer sofa-bound :)

Still, the pace of life is no longer frantic as limping around takes time and I still get exhausted at the end of the hot summer days. Am appreciating life and drawing what lies before me, in this case my coffee cup, saucer and spoon. The coffee stain is a photograph of an actual one so I guess I should apply the term Collage to the above. Lots of fun doing it.

I also had another special request for the above. I hope she likes it. Cheers!

Coffee Break products at Floating Lemons at Zazzle

Yasmin purple products at Floating Lemons Typography at Zazzle

Yasmin products at cafepress

Crazy about Coffee

First, I started out with this doodle of coffee mugs (this was while I was sipping one in the morning as one does) which I am not terribly fond of ... But it inspired me to do this:

And so the end result was this:

And then I ended up getting a Today's Best Award at zazzle for this:

Now, THAT put a smile on my face :D Cheers!