MATS Bootcamp final assignment…have a cuppa

July marked the last assignment for Lilla Roger's #makeartthatsells bootcamp. This particular brief was a bit of a departure from the ones prior. We were to make some art that we would like to hang on our own wall or give to a friend, that had to do with a favorite beverage. I'm not one to give or hang my own work, so this one left me stumped for a while. Eventually, I settled on doing a lettering mishmash…more is more, right?!? I can only hope, haha. It came down to crushed ice or coffee, so I settled for my morning must-have, since I didn't think I could do a whole lot with ice. I started by brainstorming a list of as many different coffee related phrases as I could think of. It became pretty long list and surprisingly, I ended up using them all. I decided to use "have a cup of awesome" as the focal point of the lettering part, and went from there, fitting each phrase around each other, like putting together a puzzle. As you can see from my sketchbook, it's a pretty ugly process as I just kept erasing, fitting, adjusting, etc. until I got it to a point where I traced it over. 

As you can see, at one point, I considered having a guy drinking from the mug.

My original plan also included having these two little cameos of my coffee dude on both sides of the cup at the bottom. The best laid plans don't always work out…not only didn't they fill the space quite right, it was just adding too much madness. I couldn't axe them entirely, so I kept the bright eyed one and slapped it on the mug. This left me with some space to try and pretty it up, so I researched what a coffee plant looks like, and added those super simplified branches. I doubt anyone would recognize what they represent, but they soften it up overall. Color-wise, I was originally going with a brown background, with multiple colored bright lettering, but it was way too crazy. I started toning it down and accidentally made the background a soft aqua, and I really liked it, so I kept going with it.

Make SURE you check out the gallery for tons of amazing pieces!!