Putting the TEA in Tea Lake, Algonquin Park

In the rush of excitement, many watercolourists have been known to drink their paint water, by mistake, and apply the tea to the paper! As it turns out, black steeped tea is an effective medium for capturing a brewed sepia tone, that leaves a transparent yet fluid underpainting for a fall landscape.

Upper and Lower Tea Lakes in Algonquin Park in late autumn, present a smoky dilemma for the artist: how to show brown decay in shades that say autumn and hope? In this piece, I draped a 140 pound hot pressed cotton sheet with brewed tea. Left to dry overnight, the resulting areas remind me of marsh spaces. The flow between the spaces remains organic, as the tea has seeped osmotically on the paper surface. I then return to the white spaces creating pools of water and leaf, over several passes.