Step by step Watercolour tea bag illustration

   As I type this the sounds of quiet peaceful activity float in to the library from other parts of the house. Replete with tea, vanilla ice cream and strawberry sauce, people have spread out to read, chat, or, in the kitchen, to dye Easter eggs. I am taking the chance to quickly share a step by step process post for my tea illustration in my current sketchbook.

   We drink quite a bit of tea in our household, and as my supply of normal teabags was diminishing I ordered a large replacement to tide us over. It arrived a few weeks ago and was so large it had to be added to the book. I took a photo of it sitting in one of the armchairs for size comparison.

   I decided that my cast iron tea pot would make a good contrast to show how large it actually is.

   I started by putting in the background and a basic red square for the sack before letting that dry and having lunch. This is the corner of my kitchen which worked wonderfully as an improvised studio for multitasking while cooking.

   After lunch I began to add blue and work on adding a bit of depth.

   The tea pot was a quick and easy addition which I now realize wasn't photographed in steps...

   White can be tricky and since this is a sketchbook rather than an illustration I simply added it to the top to identify the contents of the sack.

   It looks better with a black outline around the words...

Once the bag of tea was in the sketchbook, I opened it up and had a cup.

   The extra bags are packed and stored. The glass jar is in our tea and coffee cupboard, already nearly empty.

   And that is it- a quick tribute to tea, one of my favorite daily indulgences. Perhaps a few of my lovely loose leaf teas will make it into the sketchbook in the future.

If you liked seeing my process you might enjoy some of my other step by step posts:

- Wolf Illustration
- Jellyfish in Gold
- Basil Plant study
- Lion Stamp
- Three Peppers


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