Inverted Painting of a Jellyfish Using Coffee (Process)

Art Combo: Jellyfish - Inverted Art & Coffee Painting

Hello! I’m back again with a new painting process featuring a unique art style combo. I decided to combine coffee painting and inverted art into a single artwork, creating a portrait of a jellyfish. I will also show the process of how I made the painting and there will be two sides to it because again, this is a freakin’ art combo!

I’ll admit that this isn’t the best painting out there compared to a lot more talented artists, but this is just for the purpose of showcasing what minimalistic approach to painting can result into. For example in this process, I used coffee paint as a medium to paint a jellyfish with a negative filter, which means that I have to paint it using its complimentary color. In that case it is brown, since the natural color of the jellyfish in the reference photo is blue. I also find it very convenient because coffee just comes lying around, so having it as a painting medium is big yes for me.

REFERENCE

For the reference, I found this photo that I will be using as a subject on Unsplash, uploaded by the very talented Arushee Agrawal.

Then, I used Pixlr Photo Editor to apply a negative filter to the original photo.

MATERIALS

The materials I used are the Berkeley watercolor paper, instant coffee powder, white Prang watercolor, two small tip paintbrush with different sizes, and a pencil.

This time, I didn’t mix up five different shades, instead I took a small amount of coffee powder into the lid of prang watercolor - which I used as a palette – and directly mixed water into the powder. From that mixture that I made, I created light shades towards the side, and planned to just gradually make different shades as I get on with the painting.

SKETCHING

Here, I drew a very loose sketch of the jellyfish. I wanted to minimize the pencil strokes since there are light parts to it and I don’t want the pencil marks to show through (although it still did) after I finish the painting. Also, coffee paint will not be opaque unless you create a very dark and sticky shade, so better be doing a light, loose sketch.

PAINTING PROCESS

Step 1: Starting off with the hood (head) of the jellyfish, I did a wash on the entire area using a very light mix of coffee paint. While still wet, I then added blobs of slightly darker paint into the middle of the hood to emphasize the curve. Then I added several layers of much darker tones until I got the color close to the reference.

Step 2: Next, I added the white line patterns on the hood using the white watercolor paint. I first painted lighter thin lines and then I doubled it with a more opaque white going thick from the middle and thinner toward the ends.

Step 3: Then, I painted the gaps between the white line patterns with the dark mixes. I painted a dark coffee paint into one section and a much darker one into the next, making alternate patterns of two dark shades into each gap.

Step 4: After I finished the hood, I started adding some tentacles using thin lines of moderately dark paint. I just closely copied the tentacles from the reference photo and darkened what needs to be darkened. Like that single thick curvy tentacle joining the thinner ones at the center.

Step 5: I continued adding all the tentacles that there is from the reference photo.

Step 6: After painting all the tentacles, I realized that the hood got very pale since the coffee had already dried out, so I got back to it and redefined the values. I layered the stripes with another dark mix of coffee paint until I got the exact color that I want.

Step 7: Lastly, I added some details that I forgot to add earlier, like the white dot accents at the bottom of the hood. I also connected the tentacles to the white accents by painting thin lines, patching up the gap. And then finally, it’s done!

Here is the finished painting:

PROGRESS WITH NEGATIVE FILTER

To maximize the look of the jellyfish, I made some adjustment to the photos using Snapseed. I tuned the brightness, contrast, saturation, and shadows. I also sharpened the details and decreased the temperature lightly to pull out more blues. All these to pull out more blues and blacks.

That’s it! I hope that this art-combo concept that I came up with didn’t come as a complete disappointment. I also hope that you guys still enjoyed the painting process as much as I did despite it being very image lengthy. Also, I want to thank all those who supported me throughout my recent blog posts and showed their appreciation by commenting nice and encouraging praises. I’m greatly looking forward to doing more artworks and creating yet another content here on Steemit because of all your support. Thank you so much!

What do you think about this art combo that I did?

Share your thoughts and observations about my painting below. I’m not a pro but I’m willing to share any helpful ideas that I might have, so don’t hesitate to ask me anything about some details.

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