Painting with tea

I am elated to have found a way to combine two things I absolutely love: painting and tea.

For years I have heard of people using various teas to stain paper and had always meant to try working with it as an art medium…but I never quite got around to it until recently when I was inking a sketch and stupidly rested my tea mug on my drawing, thus leaving a tea ring stain. Instead of crying about it I got super inspired and happily finished the drawing off by painting/staining it with my tea.
Here was the result:

"Ghostly love"

original tea painted pen and ink drawing

(Sold)

I showed the result off and people seemed just as excited about my tea painting as I was…so I started experimenting some more:

This time I set up with two different kinds of tea: Rooibos Chai and Hibiscus. I excepted the Rooibos chai to produce a nice warm sepia tone and the Hibsicus to stain a light magenta. I was right about the Rooibos's stain but was super surprised that the Hibiscus actually dried to a blueish/purple. 

See the result here:

"Merlady"

Original tea painted pen and ink drawing

(Available for $60.00 here.)

By this second tea painting I was 100% addicted and so I just kinda went nuts with it, doing more tea painting experiments, trying new teas, adding salt, trying new paper…and its been such a fun journey.

Here I started with a pencil sketch that I then inked.

After the sketch was inked I added some washes with Rooibos Chai and Hibiscus tea

Once the tea was dry I went back in and thickened up my ink lines

"Lounging SpEYEn creature lady"

Original tea painting on pen and ink drawing

(sold)

This is a screen shot from a Live periscope broadcast I did as I painted with tea for the first time on watercolor paper( I had been painting with tea on sketch paper with the first few.)

A peek at my messy painting desk, full of tea cups!

"Third Eye Creature Lady"

Tea painted pen and ink drawing on watercolor paper

(Available for $60.00 here.)

Because I had been getting such a great response from people in regards to my tea painting I decided to run a limited edition print sale, in which I would hand paint each print with tea! 

I chose to work with my Wednesday Adams original pen and ink sketch, which was a very fitting choice for a print release in October! 

I decided the edition with be limited to 10 prints, each hand painted with tea.

After I was painting each print, I signed and numbered them. 

They sold out in a few short days, thus I feel very encouraged to begin doing limited editions like this for each month. So, stay tuned as I will be choosing my print for Novemeber soon! 

In conclusion, I am absolutely obsessed with tea painting and can't wait to share my adventures with it as an art medium. More updates soon! Keep a look out on my etsy shop, as I am posting my newly finished tea paintings for sale and they are going quick.

Much love!

-Chelsea Rose 

Read More

Art Adventures in California

In August I took a trip to California to see family, friends and to get arty farty.I was able to document most of my art adventures and I would like to take a moment to share them with you!
I did a "Meet the Artist" pop up live painting event inside Mystic Journey Bookstore in my hometown, Venice Beach.

 

I just loved painting in their patio garden! It was a warm evening with a nice breeze, I was surrounded by big buddha statues and some of the biggest crystals I had ever seen. People trickled through and I had a wonderful time painting and talking to everyone.

The painting I was working on is inspired by the Triple Goddess: Maiden, Mother Crone. I depicted each aspect of the trinity, but as mermaids.

I have not finished the painting yet but here are some progress photos taken during my live painting:

So yes….I am looking forward to finding some time to finish this one up. I will post an entry when its all done! 

I had a couple tables set up full of artly goodness like small original paintings on wood, stretched canvas prints, button pins, stickers and more:

See something you have to have. See if you can nab it in my etsy shop.

The next art adventure took place in the Arts district of Downtown LA. I met up with my friend and fellow artist Jennifer Korsen at her studio and we proceeded to paint a super secret collaborative mural in the Alleyway:

work in progress photo

finished photo

My final art adventure took me to San Diego California to a place called Writerz Blok. Its a community art space with a huge lot full of walls covered tip to tail in spray paint that are open to any artists interested in leaving their mark. 

And so I did...

Work in progress, laying down base colors

Fine tuning with highlights and shadow

Got the outlines in and now its all done!

So there is a glimpse into my arty shenanigans during my Cali trip. 

Watch a video I made with footage from the trip on my You Tube Channel, Here. 

I would love to do more traveling and paint/create/collab in new places with new friends because the experience was very inspiring! 

More art updates soon. I have a huge amount of new creations to show you. 

In the mean time, catch up with me on my Youtube channel, Periscope, Instagram and see what sort of art goodies are up for grabs in my Etsy shop. 

Much love!

-Chelsea Rose

Read More

Custom Body Painting, Purple and Gold

I did a custom body painting for local Pacific Northwest small business owner, Janet Brent also known as The E-Book queen. She wanted whimsical and wild self portraits that would serve a duel purpose: 1st and foremost to be expressive personal treasure in the form of body art portrait photography and 2nd, to serve as alluring and powerful tools in the marketing of her business.  

I love working with people to create custom body art portraits. I view these sort of projects as a collaboration between myself and my client model. 

I had very few perimeters to try and fit within. All Janet really required was that I use gold and purple body paint to create with and that she be photographed at the coast. 

I released a youtube video all about this particular art adventure. So feel free to view that on My Youtube Channel.

And Here is a beautifully written account of our art adventure by my client model, Janet:

"Dark and light must be embraced as one. We started the photoshoot in darkness with Chelsea Rose as my artist and photographer. I was painted and covered in gold with a single lantern light in a tent, on the beach starting at around 2am. The drive up to the coast was clear skies and the stars were showing its faces over dark country roads. I think I even saw the Milky Way. I was reminded of the time I saw a meteor shower with pitch black night and zero light pollution. The sky was as clear as the amazing meteor shower I had witnessed in my youth. Every few seconds, a star was falling, shooting it's light across the sky...Some stars would fall in synch. Together, they were dancing. ////

I emerged like a caterpillar. From its cocoon after sunrise. Crawling out of the tent covered in gold and purple body paint, to symbolize the inner warrior queen and goddess within me. The tribal/ethnic vibe was what I was going for. The earthy, grounded, rooted energy of mama earth and nature. What better way to celebrate the Queen in me than on the Oregon coast. //// I thought we would be going to Cannon Beach. All this time, I thought our location was where the Goonies had been filmed but it turns out that my artist/photographer had Oceanside in mind. However, a wrong turn on the country roads put us right towards Cannon Beach and a 40minute delay towards the location they had had in mind. I guess the Universe had other plans. Cannon Beach it was! And I couldn't be happier. I loved the location and setting. I love the preview pictures I've seen so far. ////

In my journey, I have tried so hard to find my 'higher self', my Queen, my Goddess Wild Woman that I had ignored the lower-self, the shadow self, for years. I tried to sweep her under the rug. In reality, I needed to hug her and embrace my lower and higher self as one. It is the darkness that informs the light. It is the light that informs the dark. What a wonderful journey to encapsulate all this than on the beach from darkness to light. Gratitude for Chelsea Rose Arts to be part of my journey and for celebrating the dark and light in all of us. Thank you! Namaste." - Janet Brent

Read More

The Long Ride Home acrylic painting

I have been so preoccupied with painting on non traditional surfaces such as cow skulls, walls, recycled materials and the human body, that I had forgotten to share with you my most recently completed painting on canvas. Oops!

So without further adieu:

"The Long Ride Home"
12"x16"
Original acrylic painting on canvas
by Chelsea Rose

This painting is the first in a series I plan to make involving placing my strange creature ladies in fairly mundane places/doing fairly mundane things. Such as, this first piece, commuting home on a train. Other ideas include waiting at bus stops, eating at a restaurant, working an office job, taking a bath and so on. I have sketches of many of these ideas at the ready, I just need to buckle down and begin to pump out paintings for this series.

Now, since I am a fiend for work in progress photos I will share the creative process involved in the production of "The Long Ride Home." Enjoy!

It all began with a  rough concept sketch in my drawing book. I felt confident enough with it that I went ahead and projected my sketch onto to canvas and proceeded to transfer it (using an india ink marker) while adding more dimension and detail.

 I then began to add the first layers of color. I hadn't done a color study for this painting so I was making up the color scheme as I went along which was mostly fun, but a bit nerve racking at times.

By the time I went through with my 2nd layer of color I had made some big decisions about the interior of the train car as well as the outside sky/cityscape. My favorite movie of all time is a Studio Ghibli animation called "Spirited Away" and if you are a fan of the film, you should be able to tell right away that I recreated my own interpretation of the iconic red seated, wood interior train. If you have yet to see this movie, you must go watch it. Now! Seriously…
I also changed the sky to a dusky/sunsety affair, while pushing the city scape farther back.

During the final layers of color I added small details like her leg hair and shoes.

And to cap off these work in progress photos, here is a nice wide look into my lil art factory.

I think my next painting in this new series of mine is going to be one of my creature ladies eating a bowl of ramen at a lil restaurant.

Here is a lil sketch of the ramen painting concept. Next step is to select a canvas and get to work projecting my sketch onto it so that I can begin to paint. I will keep you posted on its progress.

Much love and light,
-Chelsea Rose 

Read More

Tree Goddess Commissioned Interior Mural

I can feel myself evolving as a Muralist with each new project and thus I certainly had a blast creating my most recent mural:

The above was commissioned by a local Portland Oregon patron of the arts who gave me complete creative control of a section of the bedroom in his new home.

It all started with a concept sketch:

Once the concept sketch was approved by the patron I began work on the wall:

I started by using a paint marker to rough out the concept sketch directly on the wall.

And then I started mapping out the color!


And then cleaning it all up with some fine details

All done! 

What am I doing in this photo you ask? Why, I am being a tree lady too! Wasn't it obvious?

Is your bedroom next? Got a nursery or living room that could use some color? How about the chicken coop or the shed out back? Contact me if you are interested in talking about commissioning a mural!

Hope you enjoyed seeing my creative process in the creation of this project.

I have plenty of other things to show you soon, namely this past weekend I finished a custom commissioned body painting portrait session. Photos and details on that will be posted soon.

Much love,
-Chelsea Rose

P.S

I will be in SoCal come August, so if you are interested in commissioning a mural or body painting portrait session and you are out that ways, don't hesitate to set something up with me.

Read More

Bench Mural #2 in Portland Oregon

As you may know from my previous post, I was given a contract via community run origination, Alberta Art Works to paint two benches in the Alberta Arts district of Portland Oregon. I am now all done with the 2nd bench mural. See my previous post for photos and info on the 1st bench.

This was my concept painting that was approved for the mural commission.

 I began roughing out the concept on the bench with spray paint and then went back through with a black paint pen to begin to plot out the lines and details of the fish creatures.

and then I began to layer color on top of color, on top of color until I was satisfied with the color depth.

and then came the final details and black outlines.

And just as soon as the paint was dry, Brook from Alberta Art works came by and varnished both of my benches for me!

Here it is all finished!

And here I am with my school of fish ladies :)

I also made a lil video about the creative process involved in painting this bench. Check out the video here on my youtube channel.

Big thanks to Alberta Art Works for facilitating this mural project. Collage art store, thank you for donating the mural paint! Thank you, Just Bob Cafe for making sure I didn't get dehydrated while painting in the sun by offering me all sorts of yummy chilled teas all day long.

That same day, since I finished painting my 2nd bench mural with plenty of daylight and spray paint left, I walked over to one of the Alberta Free Walls where I practiced my spray painting with a quickie Third Eye piece:

Anyhoo, I am very excited to show you my two other recent mural projects. One was done in a Cafe in Southern Oregon, and another done in a patron's bedroom in Portland Oregon. 

More on those very soon!

With love and light,

-Chelsea Rose   

Read More