Why the Coffee and Red Wine Chronicles

Freedom, spontaneity, depth and colour.

What I used to use.

I used to only use fountain pen and brush pen - all black. There was a simplicity of everything being in black and white. But I wanted to add colour for some depth and shade - so I used watercolour, and I found this a bit overwhelming. Gone was the simplicity of minimal materials and the freedom to do it anywhere and not have to think too much about what colours to use.

And then I had an idea.

I was sketching and I had a glass of red wine. I’d done the black ink and something possessed me to dip a brush in the wine and add it to the paper - and as it dried I really liked the effect it had created.

Coffee and Red Wine

But, as you can see from these early sketches, I also added another colour - coffee, mixed with the red wine (all of the sketches in this post were my first attempts. I still had a lot of the previous simplicity that I had missed - all I needed was a drop of red wine and a few coffee granules and that was it. I had the depth and shading that I felt the sketches needed and I didn’t need to worry about paint palettes and water and what colours to do - but as I practiced it soon became apparent that there was a fair amount of flexibility in just using these two things - and a curious sepia type effect at that.

The return of spontaneity

I felt that the spontaneity had returned - things could take only a few minutes again. And the depth and colour were still there - albeit not in the overwhelming amount that my watercolours allowed - but I preferred it.

I now had the freedom, spontaneity, depth and colour that I had been looking for.

---

What’s coming?

This Substack is intended to expand upon the ideas of sketching with alternative materials, to provide examples and inspiration.

It’s all about getting your thoughts and feelings out onto paper without too many rules to follow - this is sketching - not drawing.

Thanks for reading this and coming on the journey with me. Enjoy the journey and the destination can just look after itself.
All the best,
Peter