It is my goal to come up with one special project every year to challenge myself. This year, I wanted to explore teabag art. What is more, it was time for a collaboration with my daughter who loves drawing and painting. So we decided on a mother-daughter-project called “a teabag a day”. The goal was to create one teabag each day for at least 30 days.
We had a lot of fun sharing our results and thus inspiring one another! I am already done with my 30+ teabags, and my daughter only has a few left (she was ill and also 3 days on vacation during the project, thus the delay). We decided together that we wanted to create individual art books with our finished teabags.
So here is mine:
This is the title page, featuring an embroidered teabag of course. 😉
On page 1, there are two teabags in a folk style inspired by mexican tyles. At first, I drew the pattern with water soluble colored pencils, then stitched the outlines for more contrast.
This double page shows simplicistic yet dramatic hand embroidery on a plain-colored background (I used acrylic colors).
Three teabags with seed stitches on page 4. The color gradients add depth to the pieces and are eye candy.
On page 5, there are two goldwork pieces. Goldwork is a mastercraft technique and I am but a humble beginner! Still, I like to challenge myself… and I think I did okay here.
I love my Neocolor 2 paint sticks! These are Swiss made water soluble oil pastels that work great on any kind of fabric. See samples on page 6.
The geomatric patterns on page 7 are solely made with satin stitching. Not easy on teabags, as the punctures in the delicate teabag paper must not lay too close to each other or the tissue will tear…
Beadwork is an essential part of hand embroidery, foremost when it comes to embellishment. I like that the teabag tissue with its naturally dyed parts still shows in the pieces of page 8!
Pages 9 and 10 (see picture below) feature blackwork embroidery. To be exact: freestyle (in terms of not-counted) blackwork in color. How’s that for a contemporary twist?! 😉
Some appliquéd plant portraits with added colored pen drawings on teabags of page 11. I got the one with the maple leaf from a fellow fiber artist living in Canada – thank you so much, Monika! (Go check out her awesome landscapes and other fiber art at mysweetprairie!)
The last two pages of my little art book show threadsketchings of human eyes (fully open to fully closed). While threadsketching, I do not follow patterns nor use any sketches; I just pick up the needle and some thread and start stitching… always challenging…