A few weeks back my husband and I went and got some loose leaf tea… and then earlier this week, I got a T-Rex tea strainer…

Hehehehe… I’ve been dunking him in and out for the last couple of minutes.

Mmm.. Dioxazine Purple.

And then neon yellow and sap green.

My sense of color is horrid, but at least it mixes in interesting ways.

Too much water = backgrounds for other possible paintings. 

Tea Staining Tutorial

1.  Boil water.  I’m boiling a lot because… I have probably 20 pieces of paper to stain over the week.  Boil a little (use only a few tea bags).  I ripped them up and dumped them all in… maybe 15 bags?

2. Leave pot on stove… go to work for 4 hours.  (A half hour is fine too, I just did the batch before going to work;) )

3. Have cat help.

4. Bin being used is from home depot, you can find it here.  It’s large, mostly because I need to at least stain 22x30in paper. In the bin is an uneven layer of newspapers and other junk mail, stuff you don’t really care if it gets ruined.  You want a plastic liner that can also be found at the hardware store.  Cheap is fine, since you’ll be throwing it out once you’re finished.  Or you can use better and wash it between uses before you get a LOVELY aroma of old tea (trust me, you don’t want this).

5. Press paper into tea, decide that there’s not enough and go make another 22 quarts.  Usually one round is fine with me, but I stain smaller sizes in one go and they take up less space.

6. Wrap up for a couple of days.

7. Go do something else.

8. After that, start poking at it, flipping the paper around, pulling it if you like it, etc.  Leave some sheets in to get darker, toss a few others in there.  Leave liner OPEN now to let it evaporate a bit.  Sometimes it’s nice to you and leaves ‘burnt’ looking darkness at the edges.

9. Dry paper, dump excess tea, toss liner (…seriously, trust me that you want to get rid of it.)

10. Wash paper in shower if large, or under a sink to kind of clean off any residue.  I tend to wash off any extra stuff, like tea leaves, stick bits, etc.

11. Tada!