Cup Art!

I've developed a bit of skill in the practice of painting on cups! As I turn up in coffee shops, I'm often asked if I sell them. I think I should! I'm pondering the possibilities of this.

In the meantime, enjoy these cups! If you'd like me to doodle on a cup for you before I've figured out a store, just email me via clicking on the sack o' cash or you can holler at me via an accursed social media.

Cup Art!

This is the first Starbucks cup I designed: I used Posca pens in a hotel room one evening and, three hours later, I had this cup. I sealed the painted portions of this cup using a rustoleium spray.

In that time, I also decorated the lid.

The tally marks were how many times I used the cup. In my research, I learned you needed to use a re-usable cup a few hundred times to truly be of a benefit to the environment. People in Starbucks restaurants seemed to love this cup!

This was the second Starbucks cup I decorated, this one painted with paint pens as well as acrylic paint brushed on.

Inevitably, I forgot my octopus cup in an airport somewhere. Specifically, I left it on the rental car in the Sea-Tac airport in Seattle after returning the car. I was extremely sad!

As the weather was beginning to turn cold, I decided to change the theme of my next cup to a rainier and colder look.

This cup was an exercise in experimentation, as it was more ambitious than the octopus cup. I decided to coat half of the cup with black, sharpie paint pen ink. On top of this, I drew the owl with Posca paint pens. Unfortunately, the Sharpie and the Rustoleium spray to seal the work reacted very poorly with each other, leading to miscoloration an running colors.

Never one to know when to give up, I took the destroyed cup back to my art table and repaired the damage, this time with acrylic paint. I sealed it with gesso, as if it were a canvas.

In my last visit to DuPont, Washington in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 epidemic's full impact was realized in that state, I had the pleasure of frequenting the little Starbucks just outside JBLM, near the hotel I was staying in.

The people in that Starbucks were a welcome site every day, and I decided to paint a cup for them as a gift. I painted Mount Rainier on this cup, and gave it to them a day or so before I flew home.

A co-worker later went into that Starbucks, after I'd left, and found that they'd put my painted cup up on display on their case. He sent me this photo!

I visited DuPont, Washington again in October of 2020, and returned to the friendly Starbucks. I recognized some of the people working there but my old cup was gone and I didn't want to be awkward, so I didn't say anything: I didn't really expect it to still be there since Starbucks corporate probably has a lot of rules.

To my surprise, some of the people recognized me (even through the COVID masks we were all wearing)! That was nice. They also told me how my old cup was hugely popular and people were regularly asking how they could get one, and eventually it was stolen!

I felt bad that their cup had been stolen, so I painted them a new one: this time with a nice bear on it.

This one is also now on display, but more out of reach of ambitious customers. :P

September 2022

My first interesting cup art in a while. For some reason this exploded in popularity as an Instagram reel. This is posca paint pens, sprayed with an automotive clear coat. I was still trying to find a good sealing solution at this point.

September 2022

Another cup painted in September.

This work was given away.

September 2022

My first effort at painting on ceramic: came out quite well!

This work served as a Christmas gift.

September 2022

A line-up of all the cups I painted in September.

These were all sealed with automotive clear coat.

September 2022

Another first: the base black for this was brushed on using stuart semple's blackest-black (BLK3.0) paint. The color atop it is posca paint pens, but I discovered they re-wet the paint and smear it, so I had to seal the black then paint over the sealant, then seal it again. A fun bit of experimentation. It was also my first realization that the texture of traditional paint on cups feels really good and that people might like that.

This cup was sent out as a Christmas gift.

14 November 2022

I believe this was my first ever attempt at using traditional paint on a drinking bottle, both base black and coloration. It was really appreciated both by my work buddy and others who saw it later, so I decided I was on to something.

It was also around this time that I concluded that I wanted to avoid painting on plastic cups anymore, but would rather upcycle metal or ceramic bottles and cups.

This bottle was a gift.

12 December 2022

I believe this was my first attempt at mixing up glow in the dark paint pigments on my own to create my own acrylic paint. My niece was graduating college and I wanted to make her a little gift.

13 December 2022

I decided to paint up my reusable boba tea cup. I was curious, also to see what effect the automotive clear coat I was still using would have on plastic: it definitely makes it a bit hazy. Finally, I wanted to experiment with a white base paint instead of black, to see if it affected the glow in the dark pigments I was using. It does, but I think the effect is actually better painting on black.

21 May 2023

A buddy from work commissioned this bottle from me as a gift for a young woman who had been hospitalized. By this point I was comfortable with creating my own acrylic paints with powders and bases, and was getting more and more comfortable with the glow in the dark poweders.

This is also one of the first works I produced using my new sealing material, KBS DiamondFinish Clear which is food safe once fully-cured (after four days). This was the trigger I needed to start feeling comfortable selling these cups and bottles.

This work was sold.

29 May 2023

These are some glow in the dark birds I painted on a coffee tumbler.

30 May 2023

I found a boxing club water bottle in a charity shop and thought it would be funny to paint a pugilist octopus (boxtopus?) on it. Aspects of this work glow in the dark.

This work was sold.

30 May 2023

I found this old, Afghanistan war mug in a thrift shop which I repurposed as this dual-octopus travel mug. This was my first attempt at two octopuses on a single vessel and it was the most complicated cup art I've ever imposed on myself. Parts of them glow in the dark.

This work was sold.