I love drinking coffee and I absolutely must have a cup of coffee in the morning or my day just won’t go anywhere. Drinking coffee is like a very important ritual in my daily life and with this in mind I started work on a series of illustrations that will celebrate “Coffee”. I’ve also decided to use this series of illustrations to create a calendar for next year, which means I will have finish 12 illustrations plus a front cover for this calendar before October.

So far I have completed 4 illustrations and I’ve already got ideas for the next three illustrations. I will use the same colour palette to colour this series series of illustrations to make them look like a “collection”. I also started working on a “hand lettering” series of illustrations which you’ll see more and more of appearing in my illustrations.

The first illustration for this series is “Barista Magic”. The idea for this illustration came from a tiny sketch I was drawing in my sketchbook. I sketch every day and can quite often just doodle away and this is one of those illustrations I started sketching without much thought but I really liked it and I was drinking coffee (surprise surprise!) at the time and I thought my illustration was quite nice.

I also do quite a lot of research on websites like Pinterest. I’m always looking for things that will inspire me and I saw this very vintage, retro looking electronic coffee pot on Pinterest which I just loved. I illustrated this electronic coffee pot with a barista on the front making coffee. It’s almost like saying this coffee pot can make coffee just like a professional barista can make coffee for you.

I love coffee but most of the time I only drink instant coffee. I don’t have the time of patience to grind my own beans and I have one of those fancy coffee machines with the small different flavour pots which to be fair does make nice coffee but if you drink 3-4 cups of coffee like me a day they can be really expensive. It’s especially annoying when you get too focused on your work, forget you have a hot drink and you end up drinking a coffee that cost a couple pounds (or whatever the pods cost) and it’s cold.

This why I only drink instant coffee at home now but occasionally I will have a nice coffee outside in a cafe at the weekend.

So when I drew this “Barista Magic” illustration, I was thinking what if there is a coffee pot that looks cute, pretty but in a classic vintage style that can make me affordable coffee at home. This would be magic! This is where my idea for these illustrations came from.

I illustrated some spilt coffee and also the steam that comes out from the pot into heart shapes because this is an illustration about love. My love affair with coffee! I also illustrated things like biscotti, sugar cubes, spices, teaspoons, cups etc, those things you will need for making a cup of coffee or you will eat with your coffee.

The rest of the illustrations are ” Love is Brewing”, ” Travelling Cafe”, ” A Cup of Joy” and I’ve written about each of these under their respective illustrations.

The idea behind “Love is Brewing” is about a coffee date. Couples that have their date with a cup of coffee and coffee makes everything better (coffee lovers like me can understand this) and romance, love and relationship grow when the coffee is brewing.

“Travelling Cafe” is just one of my silly day dreaming ideas. One day I was working in my studio and the weather was cold and miserable. Typical Scottish winter! I was imagining what if there was a magic travelling cafe truck or van stopped outside of my home, that would be fantastic!

Because this travelling cafe has to be quite “magical” I didn’t go looking for a normal food van or truck for this illustration. Instead I illustrate a cafe truck/van in the shape of a coffee pot.

When I illustrated this illustration it was also a cold, dark and miserable day in Edinburgh. In fact this winter has been downright miserable, it’s been particularly cold and wet. So I was drinking my freshly made coffee and I used a coffee mug to warm my hands and I was drinking the hot coffee to warm my body and then I thought about how nice a warm bubble bath would. I didn’t make a bath, it would just send me back to bed but I thought about how the bubbles look so similar to the foam on a coffee mug.

It will be super awesome if I can have a “coffee cup” in the shape of a bath tub. This is how I got inspiration for this illustration. I drew a pink pet pig because I really want to have a pet pig and little piglets looks so cute.

I hope you like my “Coffee Lover” illustrations so far. I have put these four illustrations on my Etsy shop. If you like them you can purchase different sized prints on my Etsy shop.

Stay tuned! There will be more “Coffee Lovers” illustrations coming out soon!