More Tea

One of the first linoleum prints I carved was a 6" x 6" tea bag.  It was printed on off white paper with sepia ink.  The coloration suggested that it might be tea stained, a coloring technique sometimes used to make paper look old and/or antique - it was neither.   From these early images of tea bags, I began to experiment with ways to vary the image with both mixed media work and simple block printing.  A variation on the multi-color tea bag on yesterday's blog, is the polka dot bag below.

Dotty Tea - Mixed media tea bag combining two prints to "fill the bag." 

I wanted to have a tea bag image that could be used to include with a gift in much the same way that pictures of coffee, Juan Valdez, or coffee mugs are used on cards to include with gifts of mugs or coffee.  (Over the years, teachers tend to see a number of gift items in these groupings or categories.)  My drawings started with two bag to help suggest friendship or a "shared" experience, which seemed appropriate for the purpose.

Early tea bag sketch in pencil, with India ink emphasizing lines added, and white China marker used to define edges and make corrections. 

I decided to re-position the bag from the original drawing to make a more appealing composition.  The solo tea bag, above, was used in this orientation, almost the same as in the original sketch.