Tuesday 15 July 2014

fortune favours the brave

The guest-posted Diva Challenge this week is to Bring Your Own Beverage.  And what a delight that invitation is - it feels like permission to be a child again, to play with my food, to make a mess, to make things up as I go along.

I'm English - I bracket sections of my day between cups of tea.  I don't have blue blood but significant traces of tannin surely run through my veins.  The first cup of today, we save a teabag.  I plonk it down on a round of paper - once, twice.  It makes strange rose-like imprints - ghost roses, or fading photos of continents long lost beneath the seas.  I squeeze three drops and let them sit before running them off the paper - far more Miss Marple than Jackson Pollock.  And finally I tear open the bag and scatter some leaves on the paper.  Later it is dry, I brush off the leaves and take up my pen - ready to read my own fortune in the patterns left behind.

The bag-printed rose islands seem too precious to overload with tangles.  I decide to merely aura them and anchor them with a stem.  A cluster of Pozer works well over the leaf-tinted area.  I think of how the touches of colour look like real-flowers, the way nature does random so well.  And those drips turn into wonderful Zingers - if you could shake them you would hear them rattle - dried and full to bursting with seeds ready to fall and grow next year's dreams.  A little border to hold it all in place and I'm done.  I sit back and sigh and feel as if I've just enjoyed a good cup of tea.

22 comments:

  1. This is a lovely tile, and great choices of patterns. I love the shapes the plunking on the tea bag made!

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  2. Really like the way you've incorporated Zinger into your stains. This would make a really nice coaster if it was laminated!

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  3. Absolutely beautiful. I love how you simply outlined the areas where the tea bag plopped down. :)

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  4. Awesome tea journey you made. Love the flowerish theme you gave it and the teabag roses are awesome. I don't know pozer but looks great so I look that one up and try it myself. Makes a great filler.... Thanx for sharing

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  5. Love this entire Tile. Beautiful patterns. Very creative approach to creating your stain pattern. The boarder pattern is perfection. The uniformity of each element is astounding.

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  6. Great tile! And I loved reading about the process.

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  7. Wonderful tile! You tied all the tea stains together beautifully into a small English garden!

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  8. I enjoyed reading your journey to this finished tile. All those different ways to use a tea bag. Who'd have thought? I love the completed piece.

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  9. beautiful way to incorporate your stain and a lovely final picture. I'm going to try some of your methods, as I am having tremendous problems. Thanks.

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  10. Lovely... JUST LOVELY... very creative in all ways.. Love, Light and Peace..Bonnie

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  11. This zendala is so very beautiful, what tea can do .....

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  12. A wonderful tile! Lovely idea your stain and a wonderful result in the end! I like it a lot!

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  13. Two pieces of art for the price of one - first, your artwork, and second, the way you tell its story. I very much enjoyed my visit here. Thank you.

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  14. That thud was my jaw hitting my desk - sigh!

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  15. That thud was my jaw hitting my desk!

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  16. Imaginative way to incorporate your beverage stains. Like the organic theme you created.

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  17. This is great! I love the different shapes from the tea and you incorporated them nicely into your artwork. All very nice.

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  18. Gorgeous!!! Love how it turned out!

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  19. What a clever and interesting abstract pattern and I was fascinated to read how you made it.

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  20. Beautiful. So clean and expressive. The matching between the stains and drawing - simply perfect. Beautiful art work

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  21. Well I'll be ****! Zingers! Your narration is always a joy and I saw islands and roses too..great minds eh? :D xx

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