I started painting when I retired (a few years ago now !) and haven’t stopped since. During lockdown, painting became a form of therapy and a much more important part of my life. I found I could escape everything by immersing myself in being creative. The downside to this was I accumulated lots of large paintings on canvas and began to run out of storage space at home.
The idea of painting on small used teabags appealed to me, both as a simple storage solution but also as a way to recycle materials. There is quite a lot of pre-painting preparation involved. This includes drying and emptying the bags, (the used tea goes on the garden) carefully opening them out, then ironing them and coating with clear gesso…after this the fun part starts. I take inspiration from everything I see around me but am especially drawn to children and people, capturing ‘moments in time’.
I’ve explored painting animals recently, especially ones with quirky expressions. However, every now and then I revert to painting large. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of swirling a big loaded paint brush across a big canvas and just going where the paint takes you!
