How to Create Complex Latte Art?

Techniques for advanced latte art drawings

We continue our training. In this article, we will move on to such a topic as complex drawings. Let's talk about how to move from basic drawings to more complex ones? Let's analyze the types of rosettes, what they are. Consider what is cup rotation? And a little touch on etching, puring and peeling.

And the question immediately arises: will the cappuccino always be cold when drawing complex latte art? Yes and no. Very much everything depends on the milk. Different brands of milk behave differently on complex latte art and at different temperatures.

What exactly is complex latte art? This is either rotating the cup or puring. But in fact-all together. And the temperature of milk primarily plays a role in puring.

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Types of rosettes

‍How to draw different types of rosettes? It is especially important to learn how to draw mini rosettes, as I call them, or thin ones. Often, all complex drawings consist of many such rosettes. What are the nuances here?

First, let's deal with the slow rosetta - Slow. Ugly duckling in the Rosette family. Such a rosetta has less in common with its brethren than with puring. A specific, fickle rosetta, but interesting. Let's see how it is drawn and what you should pay attention to. 

The most important thing in drawing all rosettes in general is a more liquid foam and a large milk pitcher. The spout in this case practically does not play a role. Remember: the larger the pitcher, the closer we will be to the surface of the drink. In the case of slow rosetta, we will spread the foam not by spreading, but by moving the pitcher from side to side. 

Slow-rosetta

The temperature in it is not particularly important, beat as usual. Pour a little more milk and after whipping, pour it from the small pitcher to the large one. What is the nuance, in such a rosetta there are no oscillatory movements as in a classic rosetta. Here, we simply move the pitcher left and right, spreading the milk on top. Gradually. Move the pitcher directly across the cup from side to side, left and right, throughout the entire pattern. The second point is to start drawing it early, as in the case of the classic rosetta, so that there is somewhere for the milk to float away. And try to feel the amplitude with which you drive the pitcher around the cup. Ideally, such a rosette should consist of 4-5 petals. Visually, it looks easy to draw such a rosetta. But there are difficulties.

First, speed. Many people are in too much of a hurry to get the pitcher to bowl too quickly. It will be more like a classic rosetta, and we need it to be slow. Second, the amplitude. The amplitude of spreading milk should be about two centimeters, so that the petals are voluminous. Spreading in such a rosette is not classic, it is smoother and slower.

By the way, it looks interesting in shifter drawings, when we first draw one element, then turn the cup 180 degrees and draw the second one. 

Thin Mini Rosettes

And now the most interesting and one of the most important elements in complex latte art. The main difference between it and the classic rosetta is that we do not stand still to make a twisted base. As soon as you start laying out, immediately draw rosetta, without foundation. The most common mistake is to stay too long at the beginning and too often lay out the drawing itself, which is why the petals begin to layer on top of each other. It is best to quickly draw such a rosetta back, with the same amplitude and speed of spreading as always.

The second point, trickle. The pressure should be small. As much as possible. Otherwise, the entire drawing will start to sink. In addition, if the pressure is strong, it will give an additional expansion of the drawing. In a classical rosetta, we need it to be triangular in shape. Here it is also important to lay out the element in a straight line so that the rosette does not expand.

Third, a strong slope. It's very important. For convenience, take a larger pitcher. The slope should be as high as possible. 

Again, the temperature is not important, the texture is important. The milk should be slightly more liquid. Puffy milk is hard to draw a thin rosetta. It takes me about seven hours to make a rosette like this.

 In other words, you have to pay it out in full in seven seconds. To do this, quickly take the pitcher back, do not stand still. The most important thing is that it does not start to blur at the very beginning. 

Rotating the cup

‍Complex latte art is closely related to the rotation of the cup. You need to be good at swirling the cup and stirring. The simplest thing you should be able to do is turn the cup handle towards and away from you. That is, 180 degrees.

 You should be comfortable using it. The second point, I remind you, all the pitcher's movements occur only parallel to your torso. Only the cup rotates, the pitcher is fixed. 

Next, the cup rotates only at your fingertips. Do not hold it too high, it will be inconvenient for you to sort it out. 

But you shouldn't take it right by the bottom either. 

Grasp just below the middle of the cup and place it on your fingertips. The task is to learn how to roll it 180 degrees only on your fingers and without rearranging it. Where they come from-there the fingers remain, just roll them over. 

Etching

‍To be honest, the topic of etching is not very close to me. But I'll try to tell you what I know myself. Let's take a look at professional etching tools. Latte art pencil. It can also be replaced with an ordinary very thin screwdriver, but best of all with an awl.

Etching. Drawing on the surface of milk with a coffee stain or something different in color from milk. In principle, it is quite a rare phenomenon in latte art. Etching is most often associated with artistic drawing, such as pencil or paint. For me, this topic is not close, so I'll tell you in passing.

In etching, it is important to keep the tool dry if we want to stretch a certain element strongly. If you do not wipe it after each element, then incomprehensible, dirty strokes quickly form on the surface of the drawing. The drawing will be ruined. If we have a drop of coffee or milk on the pencil or awl and we want to draw a line, then it is worth constantly sinking to the bottom, leading the pencil along an inclined line inside the drink. This way, we will stretch the element as much as possible. 

Puring

‍What do we call puring? This is laying out the foam at the end of the drawing. 

Basically, we're dumping the last of the foam off the pitcher's nose. And, most often, what is the head in the drawing is a puring.

It is quite an extensive and complex topic, very demanding for milk and its temperature. Nothing is worse for a barista drawing latte art than peeling off at the end in the form of puring foam. Specifically, puring and delamination are very strongly related. I believe that puring is an invincible thing, very unpredictable. To solve its mystery is not given to many. Sometimes it turns out perfectly, and sometimes-out of the ordinary. Let's take a closer look. Here are some of my observations.

Most often, under-heating of milk has a positive effect on puring. But you need to find a fine line of the splendor of milk. So that you, firstly, have enough foam at the end to put something out with puring and, secondly, so that this foam has small bubbles. 

The height for laying out the puring is about a couple of millimeters from the spout to the surface. That is, it is practically in contact with it. 

Puring needs to be spread quickly. Again, due to the stratification of milk and foam. The faster you spread your puring, the better it will be. The foam should not end completely in the pitcher. Do not draw with the last foam in the pitcher, but leave a few milliliters. The last drops of foam are dry and are unlikely to fit well on the espresso pattern. Try to finish the puring just before all the foam comes out.

At the same time, in puring, it is super important that you have exactly the right amount of milk in the pitcher. At first, you can even pour it on the scale, so that everything is perfectly smooth. 

Superheated milk and puring. The bundle

‍When drawing puring with superheated milk, something happens that everyone avoids. The bundle. It looks like a puring, as if it was drawn with streaks.

 Superheated milk greatly affects the clarity of the drawing. Therefore, I can confidently say that the high temperature of milk-from 65 degrees-negatively affects the drawing.

There is also a small life hack. I spied it on a guy at the championship, I was a referee at the time. The technology consists in throwing almost all the foam into a separate pitcher immediately before puring and drawing with-let's put it bluntly-the last remnants. We display all the elements we need, and right before putting out the puring, we drop the excess foam. The main thing is not to overdo it, otherwise these remnants may not be enough.

Match Puring

‍On the mast, puring is excellent. Why is that? Most likely, this is due to the fact that in the coffee environment, milk begins to oxidize faster and foam curdles faster. There is no such thing on the match, you can draw to the last, the puring will be laid out perfectly.

As practice shows, even superheated milk shows itself perfectly in drawing on the match. Unfortunately, this cannot be achieved on espresso.

Bottom line, if you want to master puring - practice on the match. It does not matter if your milk is superheated or underheated, puring will be laid out perfectly. If you suddenly can't do it on espresso for a long time, you get angry - switch to matcha to at least work out the movements.

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