Ready to try something different? Heat up some water, pull out your favorite tea leaves, make yourself a cup of aromatic tea, and sit back to relax and think…. Could I use tea to paint a picture?

My granddaughter and I decided to try it. We pulled out one of every kind of tea in my cupboard and steeped each one in little bowls with a small amount of hot water. To make the concentration of tea stronger we let it steep for about 30 minutes.

While waiting for our “paint” we tried another experiment. We brushed a layer of water over a piece of watercolor paper and sprinkled a couple different kinds of dry tea blends around on top of the wet paper. I especially love the rich blue/purple colors produced. This was the result after it dried:

Watercolors could be painted on top or this technique could be used to add a unique background to a painting. I’m going to keep this idea in mind for the future!

When our teas were ready to paint with, we started playing. The aroma of all our flavors of teas made for a lovely art time.

My granddaughter laid down a background of tea paint colors first and let them dry before painting some detail. Here is her finished painting:

I painted roses and as each flower began drying I added other tea paint on top to create depth. We were not sure what colors we would end up with because each tea dried very different from wet color to dry. The way they were layered created new colors as well.

I took a couple tea bags and dragged them around on paper making an abstract design. I wanted to see if the color would come out stronger directly from the bag than the brush. When they dried I played around with making various marks on top with other teas using brushes. They look like some strange creatures.

Then I wondered if various textures could be made with the tea like we do with watercolors using salt, plastic wrap, or gauze. It worked!

Am I ready to start painting regularly with tea? Probably not, but it was a fun afternoon of creating. And when I need a more subdued color for a painting, I just might heat up the tea kettle! I now know I should have made a chart showing which teas made what colors. Might have to play again!