Misty Faces

I have limited space currently 

so I am still exploring 

working on tea bags
I recently put up a new experiment 

and was asked about process

It begins with a tea bag

dried with side edges removed

on a silicon baking sheet

I draw a face with sumi e ink

this particular one

this time

I apply white egg tempera

(egg yolk, mixed with titanium dioxide white powdered pigment}

and end up with 2 faces

they are left to dry

the one on the left has been flipped over 

so the image is now facing down

I apply traditional gesso to the tea bag

then a piece of paper

which also has gesso applied

then another tea bag and another layer of gesso

so the sandwich consists of 2 tea bags and 1 paper filler 

and 3 layers of traditional gesso

they are then left to dry completely

before carefully peeling them off the baking sheet

I do not use silicon baking paper as you

 end up with a very wrinkly result

The flipped image 

The unflipped image is a lot mistier

This is after beeswax has been applied

flipped image

unflipped image

'Calista'

 is available in my Etsy Shop

and this is the original 

image

If you have any questions please leave a comment

 

Tea Bags plus

As a follow on from the post about teabags

I have continued to experiment

These lovelies are done the same except 

in one batch I had not cleaned the silicon sheet

and this gave me some lovely marks 

So I decided to do that deliberately

using avocado ink 

modified with washing soda

some of the marks seen here are

from a little of the ink mixed with egg yolk 

on the silicon sheet itself and

the darker redder ones 

are from the ink dripped in between the layers

I love the end look

But the question is can I paint on them!!!!

Not yet, these two are on the plainer bases

The First two faces for 2020

 221 Vanessa

222 Irene

Both in egg tempera using only bone black, titanium white, indigo blue and yellow ochre. 

Preparing Teabags

I admit I love to create little rituals around my arts practice.

Currently one of these is preparing teabags as a painting surface.

I am not a tea drinker; my husband performs that duty for me.

Two per morning during the week and 3 or more on weekends

An ongoing giving resource.

There is a small bowl beside the kettle in the tea making area, this ensures the teabags don’t go in the bin, all part of my make it easy strategy.

I pull the tags off and place them on another bowl that sits in the window to dry out.

I collect them up till I have 16 teabags, then I am ready to make a batch

To begin I prepare my traditional gesso* go here for a tutorial

This is not an acrylic gesso, which more properly is an acrylic ground

But a rabbit skin glue and calcium carbonate mix used while warm

1 level tsp of rabbit skin glue granules is enough for at least 2 batches

silicon mat

I lay out a sheet of soft light paper, that a friend found for me in an op shop, (it came from between the sheets of a photo album), onto my silicon mat which I can clean and reuse

I place a tea bag onto it and brush with the gesso smoothing out from the centre, it will penetrate through and glue it to the bottom sheet. I then place on a second teabag, and brush on more gesso to glue it to the teabag below.

I repeat these steps 7 more times and then leave them to dry.

When they are dry on the top surface, I peel the whole sheet off

 and flip it over to help the underside dry

When completely dry I tear them into individual pieces and trim the edges.

The teabags are now ready to use as a paint surface.

Handmade watercolour, natural pigment

egg tempera, natural pigment

frozen gesso

There and Back to See How Far it Was

Velma at the Art Gallery

I returned from Melbourne and the Grampians just over a week ago

Had a market the day after I returned

and taught a workshop in my studio 

a couple of days after that

and finally I get to this bit

My best friend Naomi

I was lucky enough to spend

a few days in Melbourne

with Velma and Naomi 

before heading off to the Grampians

A Bee on the sidewalk 

outside Federation Square

I taught a 2 day Natural Dye Class

where explored many things including 

dyeing teabags

and some people did some

rusting

and embossing

And a very nice display table we ended up with

Lovely leaf prints on a tea bag

Then I taught a 4 day

Natural Mixed Media class

No time for Photos

so these are all from the display table

we had fun with paint, ink and wax

A some more dyeing but paper this time

and we made books

It was a wonderful few days

and all my students were marvelous

Since getting back home I have spent

some time in the studio

These are small 10 x10cm pieces

Some of which will be off to Ballarat

with me

where I will be lucky enough this time

to be a student

with the lovely 

Elizabeth Bunsen

works on paper

experimenting with wax

x te

Tea Moon Cards

New Cards now available

here in the 

Soewn Earth Studio

Rows 1, 3 and 4

are all stained tea bags

with egg moons stenciled

and row 2

I stenciled the moons

and then laid the wet

stained tea bags on top

They are even prettier in person

I pretty sure one or two

similar to this will be in the giveaway

Which will be drawn

Wednesday October 30

Ozzie Time

x te