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 

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A peak into my summer, lots and lots of photos

 I thought I would show a peak into my summer by sharing some of the random photos I have posted on Instagram.

Warning: LOTS and lots of photos. And...this post is much less arty and more personal based then usual.

But to start it off, here is a look at some of the pages in my sketch book:

I started this smaller sketch book so that I could begin carrying one around with me at all times like I was once in the good habit of doing. This is the first page. My lil pen and ink Harpy goddess, she guards the sketch book well.

Mermaidynesss, all of these drawings are in ink.  I am using my fave drawing pens, Faber Castell Pitt Artists pens, which are full of India Ink.

This pen and ink drawing is inspired by the patterns I usually paint on my models when doing body painting for my "Goddess In All Of Us" and "Earth Goddess" series.

I call these creatures "Fish of Perception" and they have appeared throughout my paintings and drawings for some time now.

I have been particularly fascinated as of late with drawing creatures that have more then two breasts :)

A bit of my poetry followed by a pencil sketch.


....And now for the onslaught of random summer moments caught via crappy cell phone photos/instagram:


My favorite flowers are Morning Glories. They grew wild in the alley ways of my hometown, Venice Beach CA right along side the dog shit, bums, dumpsters and vomit :) I always thought there was an interesting poetry to them and the way they thrived. Unfortunately, you don't see them very often up in Portland Oregon... perhaps because most people consider them a weed. For a few years now I have been growing them on my patio in the summer.

They seemed to like the spirally trellis we made for them out of left over wire this year.

I am 100% positive certain fearys regularly make their homes inside morning glory flowers. I know I would certainly live in one if I was small enough.

Morning glories seen from the living room window.

We grew a lot of basil this year. Made lots of pesto!

Here is a basil clipping that is rooting by the window.

My tiny lil apartment patio.


 Spent many a morning and afternoon this summer just sitting round drinking tea and drawing out there.

My cat, Sushi and the Gnome.

Around my birthday in August the berries were ripe everywhere you looked! I picked and ate sooo many.

Here is one of many black berry pies I made. Yum.

I have also been trying my hand at brewing my own Kombucha tea.

close up of one of the scobys. Yes, it looks horribly nasty but is actually quite yummy and extremely good for you.

...painting in my home studio space. Yes, see I did paint a bit! Not as much as I was hoping to, but summers are pretty crazy. Im sure as fall descends and the rain returns I will be spending much of my time at the easel.

Dead birthday flowers. Purdy.

...my go to dread up-do when I need them out of the way.

When Danny returned from his trip to India he brought me back a bunch of beautiful bindis, necklaces and a paisley shawl.


We took a lot of random road trips around oregon scouting out the landscapes of possible shoot locations for my new body painting photography series "Earth Goddess"







...who knew that ontop of everything else( misty forest, craggy seashore, waterfalls and more) Oregon  also has desert lands!

This is something I am missing already: Waking up with the sun in my face! Fall is already here and when I wake I'm greeted with darkness and mist( which of course is enjoyable on a different level.)

Fall is an amazing thing to witness up here and I'm looking forward to it.

I think I'm going to stop posting pictures now, although there's plenty more to be seen on my instagram account Lucid Rose, or see them here on instagrid.

My next post will most likely be about my recent explorations into the realm of urban art.

Sending love and light,
-Chelsea Rose 

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5th Earth Goddess body art photography shoot!!!

On Saturday I did the 5th body painting/ photoshoot of my Earth Goddess series :



Earth Goddess
body art photography by Chelsea Rose
Model: Bran

Earth Goddess

body art photography by Chelsea Rose

Model: Bran

....This shoot was the most challenging of the series so far but I am very excited with what we came away with. 

The creative process went something like this:

We decided to rent motel rooms( Thanks so much kickstarter backers!) in Oceanside for Friday night so that we could wake up at 3am and I could get to painting.  We were all pretty groggy and it was super weird waking up so early but we managed and I was done with the full body painting by 5:30am.



We got to the beach by 6am and I was super happy that we had decided to begin the creative process so early( even if it was a bit painful) because we had the entire beach to ourselves with some lingering misty/fog clinging to the horizon lines. It was so beautiful! My model Bran braved the cold early morning, sand bugs, rock climbing and so much more. She really deserves a big thank you for being so courageous and being willing to step out of her comfort zone for the sake of art!

Oh, and of course we also made time to poke around in the lush tide pools that were exposed due to the extremely dramatic low tide. There were so so so many sea anemones and star fish!

Anyhoo, my next photoshoot is planned for the weekend of the 21st. I think it will be a fascinating session if I can manage to pull it off. I will be painting three women in one sitting. Wish me luck!!

In other news, I am still painting and drawing as my messy art table can attest to:


messy means progress!


and here is a little black and white shot of my current acrylic painting in the works. This photo was taken a few weeks back when I was feeling stuck. Its interesting how looking at some of my super colorful work in black and white can really help me figure things out and break various mental blocks down. I just finished this painting today, so full color photos will be up soon!

And I have begun dragging around a sketch book, small enough to fit inside my purse:




When I was younger I was practically inseparable to my sketch books. I am happy to be getting back in the habit of always having one near.

Anyhoo, lots of new art is coming soon. Keep an eye out.

Much love and light,
-Chelsea Rose 

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