Tea Papers Series

The "Tea Papers" is an in-progress series of art images created with the delicate papers of tea bags. I acquire large used commercial tea bags from coffee and tea shops in the Los Angeles area. I dry them, the leaves are removed, and the papers carefully opened up to their original size and shape.

Each is very distinct in the color patterns taken on in the brewing and steeping process and using a large light table, I start to compose the image, pairing individual papers of different sizes with each other, assembling 4, 5 or more together. The selected papers are then carefully glued together in place onto a large sheet of transparent art paper.

Next, I begin choosing from a variety of organic dried flowers, herbs, vegetable pieces and fragments, integrating them into the working assembly. Oil and dry pastels, acrylics and pencils are also lightly applied to highlight some of the tiny inherent crevices in the papers and fragments themselves.

Finally, a small mixture of the original dried tea leaves is scattered across the fully completed image and a high resolution color photograph is made of the art in place on the light table.

Each “Tea Papers” image will have an edition of only 5 limited, signed and artist certified prints. They are offered framed or unframed.