Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea

Tea-ish Illustrations

This is a very cool thing.  Illustration Friday has weekly submissions by artists on a particular theme, and here the theme was TEA. 

I spent some time browsing through the tea illustrations, and all I can say is ... Wow.  There are so many incredibly talented and creative people out there.  It's truly amazing. 

There are a wide variety of styles and mediums in the contributions.  I love this one: teacup and lace.  For humor, check out  Mr. T drinking tea, a teacup atop a golf tea, and this cute one: Tea for Six.  And this one, shown here, may be the tiniest one.  It's acrylic, painted on a 1" x 1.25" tea tag!

Here's something interesting: Teabag Folding, a kind of origami-type paper-folding art, also known as kaleidoscope folding, which inspired this piece.

The folded pieces are lovely, I might have to try this just for fun.

I did a search through the Illustration Friday topics, and guess what's missing?  No coffee!  Wouldn'tcha think they'd do a coffee theme?  Somebody oughtta suggest it.  Eh?  Nudge nudge.

Via Teaswap

Pretty Teapots

Funny how surfing can take you down unexpected paths.  If you just let your mouse lead you, following links can be ... it's a little like Alice following the white rabbit down the rabbit hole.  Who knows where you'll end up. 

This morning my rambles took me to the Fitzwilliam Museum where they have this beautiful Wedgwood teapot from the late 1700's.  It's identified as Queensware from the late 1770s, named after Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, who had ordered a tea set made from this same material in the 1760s.  That Charlotte, she sure had good taste.

S'wenyway, jump from museum-piece Wedgewood to outrageously expensive Yi Xing.  This 18th century dragon-shaped Yi Xing pottery teapot, "laminated with silver and ceramic plates", is apparently one of the few pieces existing today that mixes western ceramic painting and Yi Xing pottery.  Asking price $18,000.00.

I wish I had the kind of money that I could purchase a teapot for the price of a small car.  Cripes.  For po-fok like me, seriously out of the question.  If I was rich though, collecting teapots would probably be something I'd do.  What a fun hobby that would be.  Let the hubs collect cars or techno-toys, I'd collect china and pottery and jade.

*sigh* Dreaming, dreaming...

Well.  Anyway.  Speaking of jade, here's a teapot I could probably afford.  It's only $325, but then, it's not claiming to be ancient, or even antique.  This is the Jade Fire Dragon teapot from Holy Mountain Trading Company.  I love the shape of this dragon much better than the other one.  Isn't it pretty?

If you love teapots, check these links:

• Teapot Art Gallery - way browse-worthy
• History of Chinese Teapots
• Chinese Jade Teapots
• History of Tea & Tea Culture
• Japanese Tea Containers

Chocolate ... Saturday?

Un-freakin' believable.  I thought I had recovered enough brain cells from holiday overload to get back to normal, but I guess not.  I honestly thought yesterday was Thursday, so I completely missed Chocolate Friday.

I intend much bowing and scraping and other gestures of chocolately obeisance, lest my beloved majik-de-cacao abandon me.  So this week, it's Chocolate Saturday:

I love these prints. I found them at art.com, while searching for chocolate art.  Chocolat Noir (on the left) and Noix de Coco (right), by an artist named Silvia Vassileva.  I just love the muted colors.  There's something soothing in them, and at the same time, delectable.  If I had room, and a budget for it, I'd fill my kitchen walls with this kind of artwork.  All of coffee, tea and chocolate.  Yum!

National Hot Tea Month

I had to post these, in honor of January being National Hot Tea Month (according to American Food & Drink Holidays) AND today being the birthdate of Louis Braille, the creator of the braille alphabet.  (After the recent derth of posts here, two in one day! Well, I had to do something to avoid working...)

Feel free to borrow/steal/use these, and if you post them somewhere, let me know and I'll link us all up as members of the National Hot Tea Month Club!  Oh, and please don't link to the images here, just right-click, save-as, and then put the icon onto your own blogspace.

UPDATE: Check here for a list of folx who have joined the National Tea Month Club!

Happy Halloween!

Me and my crones ... err... cronies and our cuppas.

Tea & Coffee Art

Two offerings from the art department this morning.  First, the tea...

I've had this picture posted in my tea room for years now, and I occasionally get emails asking the source.  I'm sorry to say I have no idea.  I don't know who the artist is, I think it came off of a greeting card, but I'm not even sure about that. 

Anybody know anything about this picture?  I just love the feeling of it, it reminds me of sweet childhood dreams.  It's especially dear to me because of the dog in the chair. 

Next, a cool coffee posting from Rick Lee, one of my favorite photoblogs: Coffee at Lord & Taylor.  This is just the first pic, click to see the bigger and the rest.  The ice cream sandwich looks yummy too, but this elegant coffee setting really pleases my eyes.  Go have a look at the whole blog, if you have time.  All scrumptious!

Coooool Coffee Cards

These greeting cards by Jacquie Farr are made with the paper of used coffee filters, and painted with coffee as a medium.  Now that's what I call creative recycling.  And they're beautiful to boot!

Toss in coffee as the subject of many of the cards, and you've got a card collection too cool to send or give away!

I may have to try painting with coffee.  The result would be so beautiful in color, even if my talent can't do it justice.  But ... well... it's just so hard to make the coffee, smell the coffee, and NOT drink the coffee.

Watercolor Coffee

I've been meaning to post this link for a few days now, but stormage and other things kept putting it out of my head.  Just Coffee Art is two creative people producing the most lovely paintings, done entirely with coffee.  They have a very different style from Chanisa Arthachinda; if pressed I don't think I could choose which I like better. 

The idea for using coffee as a painting medium came from a coffee house.

It all started one summer when they planned their first art show in a coffee house in Duluth, Minnesota. They wanted to come up with something unique and creative. Since their show was going to take place in a coffee house, they thought it would be appropriate to use coffee as their medium. They tried several techniques, such as using the coffee bean to sketch with and making pastels out of coffee grounds. These techniques were not successful. So they finally decided to use the coffee as a watercolor.

They've done a variety of subjects, including portraits (the sample shown here, whimsically titled Mocha Haze), nature, and a whole collection of coffee theme paintings.

Visit their website: http://www.justcoffeeart.com/

Artsy Fartsy Coffee & Tea

I was playing around with Photoshop this morning, and tried out a new filter.  The result - Antimatter Teacup:

(I haven't been happy with the Typepad photo album setup, so I'll be posting any new coffee/tea art and photos on my new Flikr account.  Please feel free to come and visit and leave comments!)

Audrey at CoffeeSage has added some new coffee icons and avatars.  I've updated the coffee / tea clipart page with this link and some others, so if you're looking for clipart, be sure to check out the new stuff.  Audrey also does coffee art - go have a look at her creations.

Latte Leaves

This was a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  Latte-inspired digital art...