Black Coffee II: The Complete Series

Inquisition II has concluded the Black Coffee II series, but I still have left a whole bunch of "coffee sketches," as I call them, so I'm planning to begin the third installment of the series next year. Meanwhile, I'd like to showcase some of the best (in my opinion) works from now completed series. But before that, a brief history of my "coffee artwork" -- and what on earth has coffee got to do with it, in the first place.

The answer to that question is simple: all the drawings from Black Coffee series are based on the actual images seen in dried coffee grounds, inside the actual coffee cups drunk by the actual people. I did these coffee drawings on a regular basis since 1993 through 1996, using only black ball-point pen. Most of them were drawn on the pages of a math copybook, properly titled and numbered, but later I started to make just quick drafts on random pieces of paper. Presently the copybook drawings are gathered into the series called Black Coffee With No Sugar, while the quick coffee sketches are collected as Coffee Drafts. On the left you can see my very first coffee drawing, called Golgotha.


The first colored version of a coffee drawing appeared in 1995. It was Mate to the Queen, loosely based on 1993's Regal Execution, seen on the right. It's probably the only case when I have changed the original composition so dramatically -- all the later color remakes follow their black-and-white predecessors as close as possible in that regard.

Mate to the Queen (1995)

The Black Coffee series, based on my earlier black-and-white coffee drawings, was among my first surreal portfolios, along with Body Language and Paranoia. It contains 15 pieces in total, dated from 1995 to 2000. In 2002 I started a new series called Black Coffee II, which has been completed only a few days ago. It also consists of 15 pieces and has some remade titles from the previous series. Here are a few selected works from the now complete series, as promised in the beginning. You might have seen some of them already in my previous blog posts.

Mate to the Queen II (2002)

Mermaid's Dream (2003)

Bride & Widow (2004)

The Original Sin (2004)

Shadows of the Memories (2006)

The Blue Cloud (2007)

The Moonstone (2009)

Nude Beach Dreaming II (2009)

You can see the rest of the works from this series at my website, or my deviantART gallery.