FAQ — The Sun Also Paints

An idea one day…

One sunny June day i looked down at the teabag I had recently pulled out of my steeping mug and placed on the crystal ash tray designated for tea bags. I then looked over at the new water soluble oils I had purchased from the craft store earlier that month. And thus, the tea bag paintings were born.

On this page I wanted to line out the process in which my products are created, so you can feel secure in their longevity, quality, and care.

The most common question I get is “won’t these rot”? Rest assured, all organic material that could rot, has long since been removed from my teabag paintings.

TO give you a broad idea of my process and the longevity of my paintings:

each tea bag is steeped, then dried out fully over several days.

then, each bag is drained of all organic contents (the tea contents) and then further dried and pressed over several weeks.
when the tea bag is thoroughly prepared, a layer of gesso is painted down where the painting will go.
Lastly, when the painting is complete, a layer of professional varnish is applied to seal and protect the painting.
Both the gesso and varnish, along with the thorough preparation process for each bag, ensures that each painting is as stable as it would be on any regular canvas.

The print-making process

Similarly, I spent lots of time perfecting the process for creating prints. It involved months of brainstorming about how I could translate my paintings to a more affordable level, without compromising the brand of the “teabag” painting.

Eventually I invested in a fine art scanner and printer and began playing around with digitizing my paintings. Once i was happy with the accurate color and texture format coming through, there was one key final step that in my opinion “made” the prints:

adding a slight drop-shadow in post-processing.

This creates the illusion that the teabags are placed on top of the paper, rather than printed on.

each print is as accurate a portrayal of the original painting as possible, and is life-size as well, placed on the standard framing size of 4x6.

The prints are made on a thick, velvet fine art paper and printed from fine ink that is meant to imitate art and last as long.

to keep the pricing accessible and to aide in reduced shipping costs for you, the prints do not come framed (as opposed to original paintings, which do.)

Lastly, I will add that not all original paintings are/will be released in print form. Right not 7 of the 9 in the countryside series are available in print format. This is because, despite my efforts, some paintings simply don’t scan well.