Raspberry Tea

After doing coffee, I thought I’d try tea.  The painting I wanted to do was of raspberry tea and some raspberries, so I that I’d use raspberry tea.  It has a strong pigment and it’s red.  Sounds good, right?  Well, when it dries, it dries to a grayish blue color.  Apparently, I won’t be painting with red.  It seemed to dry strong enough, so I decided to go ahead with it, and it smelled pleasant enough.

It seems to layer more nicely than the coffee did and works more similarly to watercolor.  It’s been interesting working with only one color in a painting.  These are just the first layers.  I always have to be sure not to go too dark in the beginning.  I can always go darker later if I need to.  It’s fun watching the tea go on, because it goes on red and then dries a grayish blue.

Here’s the finished piece.  It was interesting see how in the darker areas, after some layers had been built up, it dried to a purple color.  The raspberry tea was definitely very fun to work with and didn’t come out at all how I expected.

This 5×7 piece is now for sale on my storenvy page:  shalevbasya.storenvy.com.