How to Draw on a Coffee Mug

 I'd been looking for something new to do for awhile, and here it is. 

This is fun and all you need are the right tools. As well as one or more solid white coffee cups you want to decorate, you're good to go!

A long time ago I drew on a mug just for kicks, but I'm pretty sure I was using the regular Sharpies you're familiar with used to label stuff with....Truth be told, the design is still intact to this day, but since I only used it as a catch-all for pens and pencils, it never went through the litmus test of washing it to see if my design would fade. 

Anyway, you need to get a pack of Sharpies like these. I saw this 5-pack on Amazon which appears to be pretty popular. I almost bought it, only issue is it includes a white marker and since I don't have any colored ceramic stuff that a white pen would show up on, I passed it on, and ended up picking out my preferred colors instead. You can also get "extra fine" as well as "fine" (I picked up two extra fine by mistake, but it turned out that the tip does produce very good inkflow. So you can't go wrong with either.

Step one - Apply a little rubbing alcohol  around the mug as this will help the ink from the pens stick better. I left mine alone- this was done the day before.

Step two is to practice your ideas and do a little brainstorming for designs - I already have a shop on Etsy showcasing mugs with my own designs on them, so I drew from some of them. These mugs are actually drop-shipped - I don't own them, I just focus on making the designs. Etsy as well as platforms like Pinterest are great for finding ideas, you can come across some funny memes, sayings (just don't copy, but you can use a funny saying )

If you have some tracing paper, you can use it to transfer your final design on the mug so it will be flawless and easy to color over. I took a piece of paper and taped it over the spot that I wanted the design to be . Not the same as tracing, but it did help to get the proportions correct. Since you're going to be using ink pens that are ultimately permanent, you definitely want to avoid the potential of making mistakes for the obvious reason.

You'll have to shake these pens up real good. These pens have the roller ball thingy in them, so you'll have to do the whole thing of gently depressing the pen tip and then shake, shake shake with the cap on. My pens were brand new and it probably took about a minute and a half per pen to get the ink to flowing. 

Now comes the fun, you're ready to draw your design! As a special tip, I have learned you can go over a design with more than one color once but not more than that. I was attempting to make the designs here a little more dimensional. Like with the moka espresso pot and the ball of yarn. Yes, that is a funny double entendre bit of humor aimed at knitters :) I have one in my shop, I think it got a few favorites, not sure if I have sold any or not.

Now to set your design on your mug or mugs permanently, they will need to do a little oven time. The recommended setting is 350 degrees for thirty minutes. 

As a important note I want to point out these can be hand washed, but don't put them in the dishwasher (found a source that told me.) Now my dishwasher quit working last month so it's a moot point anyway.

Enjoy your new hand drawn mugs! Perhaps think about giving a few as gifts? Somebody you know is bound to love getting one of these.