Coffee painter brings imagistic magic to ICT
Within each of Stephanie Jeanes’s coffee paintings is woven a hidden message — meant as motifs of encouragement. In this sunflower tracing, Jeanes encourages viewers to know that, “You are loved.”
Some artists open oil palettes before wetting the filbert. Others, though, dump Folgers grounds into a saucer and swish mocha-colored shades into works of art.
While surveying the walls of the Donut Whole this July, one might have noticed a series of brownish-tinted, imagistic fantasy paintings. The subjects of the artwork range from a toga-clad Roman with a mushroom cloud for a head to beachgoers lost in the suburbs.
Stephanie Jeanes began painting with coffee when their daughter, then a senior at Winfield High, mentioned using the method in a 2-D art class.
“It’s very forgiving,” Jeanes says. “It looks vintage too.”
Jeanes has been a quality control operator at Spirit Aerosystems for the last 13 years. In that time, they have maintained a propensity for creating works of art — particularly paintings.
Jeanes said they do most of their drawing on break at work. At home, though, they get to paint.
Stephanie Jeanes, a long time Spirit Aerosystems employee, paints a sunflower with coffee.
Using coffee as a medium for painting makes both stylistic and economic sense for Jeanes’s painting, they said. Some water color paints range from $50-$100. But an 11.3-ounce can of Folgers? That’ll be $4.19 at Target.
Jeanes noted the flexibility of coffee as a medium and explained how to produce a range of colors.
“Add more grounds and less water to your mixture and what you get on the paper is shinier and darker,” Jeanes said. “Use fewer grounds and more water and it’s lighter.”
In each of their works — be it a skull, a sunflower, dandelion, or rendition of “Starry Night” — Jeanes always places a motivational motif.
“There’s usually something hidden in there.””Each of these original paintings done by Jeanes were displayed in the Donut Whole throughout last month
