Jonathan Patterson uses coffee to paint nature, architecture and comics

Necessity first drove Jonathan Patterson to paint with coffee, but he’s not surprised it hooked him.

“[Coffee] sneaks into my life in the weirdest ways,” he said.

Patterson poses with one of his original pieces of art painted with coffee at Cup 'n' Cork on Thursday.Glenn Landberg

He’d forgotten his art supplies on a camping trip, but having been a coffee drinker since the tender age of 7, Patterson didn’t forget to pack some instant coffee. Using the coffee like a watercolor palette, he soon grew to love the subtlety of the sepia-toned results.

“I like the clean, crisp lines of black-and-white [drawing],” he said. “It’s kind of refreshing. And I love the pen-and-ink and coffee pairing.”

A classically-trained pianist, Patterson’s true passion is music, but art, he said, is almost meditative.

“Art has always just been a sort of side hobby. It’s mind-organizing for me,” he said. “It helps me.”

Greeting cards decorated with Patterson's paintings for sale at Cup 'n' Cork.Glenn Landberg

He’s found it to be a great travel exercise as well. A typical watercolor painting, he said, takes around two hours to create. In other words, it’s a perfect project for a day trip to Georgia or a cafe stop during a trip through France.

“I often do these right there in a coffee shop,” he said. He’ll buy a coffee and perhaps a small cup of espresso from which to work and sketch out whatever’s in view.

Mostly, he paints buildings or urban street landscapes.

“I love architecture and details and old antiquity,” he said. “In architecture, people show their humanity, what they value. I love things that involve detail and care.”

Patterson's signature on the back of a greeting cards decorated with one of his paintings.Glenn Landberg

Some of his more popular paintings are of the Glenn House in Cape Girardeau, half-timbered houses in Dijon, France, and a courthouse tower in Covington, Georgia. Sometimes he paints from imagination, too, but always with attention to detail. He said his orientation to detail is a product of his temperament, which he describes as more akin to an engineer or scientist than a painter. But his humility belies his gift for visual composition and capturing form.

“I actually start with a sketch using the coffee,” he explained. This keeps it loose and mutable before he adds the pen work afterward. That way, the coffee doesn’t bleed the ink.

“I try to think, ‘What’s the most important part of this?’” he said. “How is the eye going to flow through this?”

But not all of his artwork is so serious. He inks some comics, too, but even there, coffee is often a theme. One depicts caffeine withdrawal through the five stages of grief.

“Whatever weaves into my head and makes me laugh, it’ll come out in a comic,” he said, before adding, “I may drink a little more coffee than I should.”

Patterson’s art is available in postcard form at Cup ’n’ Cork, 11 S. Spanish St. in downtown Cape Girardeau, where, incidentally, Patterson also works serving coffee.

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3627

Pertinent address:

11 S. Spanish St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.