Pareidolia-Teabag Stain Images

 Pareidolia: When you can see images within images, which I love to do...

I've been seeing art on Instagram where images are drawn out of teabag stains, much like the sidewalk cracks a few posts back, so I gave it a try.

I did these while I was doing the art practices in the Jots and Tittles journal in the last post. I worked on them in between the journal pages.

There's not a photo of the first page of teabags, but I took eleven teabags right out of the boiled and steeped water, without squeezing out any water, and plopped them all on one page in my new Winsor Newton mixed media sketchbook. They were left to dry about twenty-four hours. 

They were supposed to stay until completely dry, but I got impatient. Besides they had already left a good dark stain, so I took them up. They were not soggy, but still wet enough to do another page, and this time I spread them onto two pages (below) and left them until completely dry, before pulling them up. One page is stained rice paper. 

I went back and re-watched the video and found out that when you take the teabags out of the water you're supposed to gently squeeze the water out of them before plopping them down on the paper. Ideally, you use a small paper/card for each teabag, because you have to turn the image to different sides to find the image that's hiding. 

The first page of teabag stains from the very wet teabags.

The images I pulled out from the first page stains with a small Micron pen. Some are upside down and/or sideways, because I had to turn the page to see them, which is why each one should have their own paper.

This is the second page with the semi-dry teabags. I only used six on this page, which gave me a little more room.

Again, I had to turn the page to find the images, so they are every which way.

The other five semi-dry teabag stains on rice paper. I forgot how absorbent rice paper is, and some of the tea soaked through onto a second page and into the magazine it was laying on, so these stains are very pale in comparison to the other pages, but still plain enough to see images within. I will use the stained second paper for another project!

I found these images hiding among the stains. I love all these critters/characters, and I only used mostly lines, but some of the artists add in shading and details, so they look more like art pieces. Fun stuff!

I piled the dry teabags into a pie pan and later emptied them out and flattened them out to use in other projects. The driest, most shriveled ones are from orange spice teabags, which are kind of sticky and hard to empty when dry. I used a variety of bags to see how they would do, and they all worked beautifully. I will be doing more! 

Anyway, that and my Jots and Tittles journal is what I've been playing with lately. Hope y'all are getting in some creative time, as well! So many new things to try and so little time...

More Experiments and a Very Tall Lady in "Jots and Tittles"

 I'm still playing/experimenting in the Jots and Tittles handmade journal. This is what I've done since my last post.

I worked on this one, off and on, for a few days. She was loosely inspired by Kate Morgan's gorgeous canvas pieces. It's a double spread, and the skirt is much longer than I realized when I cut it and glued it down. It's cut from tissue paper, then I sketched her torso, head, etc. The background is a couple of layers of watercolor, and I sketched the tree in ink. The goat is "Cooter", and was one of our pets years ago. I printed off a photo of him, cut it out, and glued him down. The collar and hat are cut from the scrap tissue paper and collaged on. She was so much fun to do! 6" x 18"

Same piece, but I used a negative filter on the photo in editing. I like it a lot!

Another double spread where I cleaned off part of my palette. The paint was already thin, and I added more water, which made it too light for my taste, but I planned to come back to it when it tells me what else it needs.

The same double spread as above, but yesterday I found a piece of paper that I had wiped the paint off my brush on at different times and saw an image in it. The colors looked good, to me, so I glued the paper down on the background. I still like it, but I may do something else to the background at some point.

Another page where I cleaned off my palette with very watered down watercolor paint, also planning to add more at a later time.

This is the other side of the folded paper (from above) where I had wiped the paint off my brush at various times. I pulled out a couple of images on it, and the colors matched, so I glued it down on the page. I like it too.

Another palette clean-off page, just going where the brush took me. It looks a bit Asian to me. It's wonky, but I love it!

One more page of cleaning off my watercolor palette, and I do love the looseness of it. After a couple of days, I added the stems and leaves with a posca pen and a colored pencil.

I got out my gouache paint for this double spread and, based on the watercolor one above, used a large flat brush to recreate it. I used the paint straight out of the tube, and it's not showing up, but I used a blue posca pen to put dots at the ends of all the yellow lines. When I find my stencil with Asian words, I'm going to add one Sanskrit word to it.

 

Here, I was just doodling with a small marker and my imagination.

This one started off with a very large black Posca paint pen and a loose sketch, loosely inspired by Helen Wells. A couple of days later I got the bright idea to color it in with my Posca paint pens. WAY too bright! I thought it needed something translucent over it to tone it down. I couldn't think of anything, so I painted over it with white Kuretake watercolor, which changed it a lot. I had to redo some of the black lines after the watercolor dried, but I really kind of like it now. 

Another background page where I cleaned my palette off. I had a sheet of tea stained rice paper, so I folded it in two, cut some bottles in various shapes, and glued them to the page, then added some pen lines and a bit of watercolor. The logos are stickers off some shower steamer discs that I was gifted.

These vases are just some imaginary one-line vases and jars that I doodled, just to keep in practice. Fun stuff!

I did another page of sketches this morning, but had company and didn't get them scanned yet, so they'll show up in the next post probably. Hopefully, with more pages!

I have been very tempted to do the 100 Day Project, the 100 Stitch Meditations Challenge, and this year's Sketchbook Revival again, but, so far, I've resisted the temptation. They were a lot of fun last year, and I grew a lot creatively, but it was very challenging to do them all at the same time. So, we'll see!

We're still trying to clean up our yards from the big ice storm. So many trees and limbs down! We had to call the phone company to come unhook the phone line so we could get two big limbs off of it, and we're going to have to call someone to come cut a huge tree limb off my mom's house, which is still attached to the tree trunk, but barely. We barely have any trees left in our yard now. It's sad to see the trees, especially my favorite big cedar, ravaged by Mother Nature, but time changes everything...

Anyway, that's it for this post! Hope to see you in the next one!

Watercolor Experiments in "Jots and Tittles"

 Experimenting continues in my Jots and Tittles handmade journal as I try to get my mojo going again.  It's still really cold here, but the ice is finally gone after two weeks. Some people still don't have electricity, and there is still a massive amount of cleanup and repairs to be done with fallen trees and branches, but things are looking up now. Thankful!

While we've been housed in, I've played with what was within arm's reach of my recliner. I've lost my India ink and have searched among the boxes for it multiple times, as I want to use it on the "Wild Garden" at the end. I get so overwhelmed when I start to organize my art stuff that I sit down and put it off. Been doing that for a long time now.

Anyway, here's what I played with last week, plus I started a long collage lady mixed media piece over the weekend. All are from my imagination, the garden one being inspired by a Karen Stamper class in Sketchbook Revival. The rest, I just went wherever the brush wanted to take me with watercolor already on my palette. Not masterpieces, but fun to do and good practice!

Not too happy with this one, so I added some ink and a crow to kind of balance it out.

The "garden" is mix of various mark making tools in black, brown, off white, and white. If I can ever find my India ink, I will add a bigger branch in front.

These gardens are so much fun to make, and I have done a few, but while I was working on this one over a couple of days, I went back and watched Karen Stamper's class video in Sketchbook Revival 2026, and realized that I've been doing mine all wrong. Mine are much denser and darker than hers, and she leaves spaces for things, where I cover mine and keep layering things over until I can live with it.

Because these are 6" x 18" they are too long for my scanner, so I had to make photos with my camera. This is a large as I could make them, but you get the idea.

Now, I'm working on a very tall collage lady in this same book!

But, right now, I have to do my PT exercises for my hip/back. Because of one thing, or another, we've missed six days now, and I sure don't want to get back in the shape I was in, where I couldn't even get out of a chair without bad pain. 

Anyway, that's it for this post. Thanks for visiting! Keep on keeping on!

Resuming an Old Handmade Sketchbook "Jots and Tittles"

 So, I finished my other sketchbook, except for a couple of watercolor sketches that need a bit more work, and in looking for one of my new sketchbooks, I found this little handmade book that I made back in 2012 that hasn't been used since 2015.

At the time, we were having to take my father-in-law to the doctor a lot and I spent a lot of time in waiting rooms, so I made this small light weight journal to keep in my purse to sketch in while I waited. I also read in my Kindle a lot, plus I had another small hardback bought sketchbook that I did most of my sketching and note taking in. That explains the long gaps in the dates!

The cover is made from soft unstretched artist canvas, which I stenciled and layered paint on, and I punched four eyelet holes in the edges for decoration and to tie together with waxed linen thread for bookbinding. It measures 6"x9" closed. 

It's been so long that I don't remember what kind of paper I used, but it's a bit thicker than regular paper and is an off-white color. It has two signatures of five 18" long papers folded in half, and they are bound with a simple pamphlet stitch using the same waxed linen thread I used for a tie.

The first four pages are from 2012, and the fifth page is from 2013. 

People I saw in the waiting room that I found interesting

A mandala kept me busy for a whil

Doodled a quote that I saw somewhere

Another mandala practice

Ok, I did a quick loose watercolor sketch in it this morning from imagination, using leftover watercolors and a large brush. The paper does not work well with wet watercolor, and it buckled some. It might be ok using dry brush watercolor, but it seems to be more suited for dry media. Not great, but at least I was painting! 

I had to photograph it because it wouldn't fit on my scanner, being a 6" x 18" long double page spread. I also couldn't make the photo on here bigger, because it wouldn't fit on the published page. Anyway, it's a start on getting my mojo back! Ha!

We are still iced in with very frigid temperatures, but thankfully, we have what we need, and are doing ok. Day #8 with the aftermath of "Fern".

Hope you are safe, warm, well, and creating beautiful things, wherever you are! You don't have to make things perfect to enjoy making them...

Doodling During the Ice Storm "Fern" 2026

 I haven't been doing much in the way of creativity yet, but I did do these quirky doodle sketches trying to get my mojo flowing again. It hasn't worked. Too much else going on and a lot of distractions. These last three sketches finished up the sketchbook I've been working in, so I get to start the next sketches in a new one, or maybe finish up one that I got started in and got sidetracked. I have a few of those! Ha!

My mind wasn't really on these sketches, but I showed up and tried, but it's been 2-3 days, and I've done nothing else creative, except watch a couple of art videos and dig out another sketchbook. I guess that counts though! 

I have also gotten very slack on my physical therapy exercises for my back/hip, which is not good. I am guilty of letting a lot of stuff slide lately. I'm going to have to pull up my big girl britches and do better! lol

Day 7 of Ice Storm "Fern" (1-24 2026 thru 1-30-26)

A few more ice storm "Fern" pictures that hubby made four days ago while he was out feeding the cats and birds. These are just in ours and my mom's yards.

Today is day seven and many people all around us and in the county are suffering. They still have no electricity, and even those with some form of heat are running out of fuel, food, etc., and some have water pipes frozen and/or busted. Our county in Tennessee was one of the hardest hit, but neighboring counties and states are still trying to dig out also. Electric company people are working as fast and hard as they can to restore electricity, and people who are able are helping cut and clear away trees/limbs from roads and driveways. Warming shelters with places for hot meals, hot showers, water, etc., have been set up in various locations. Some of the ice has melted off the trees, lines, and roofs, but the ground and roads are still very slick, and the temps are still frigid.

The weather people are forecasting more extremely cold weather and possibly more snow from today through the weekend. Please pray for all the people working out in these conditions trying to help other people get back to some level of normalcy, whatever that is. 

The last picture is of a large tree limb that has fallen on top of my mom's house. Nobody lives in the house since she passed, but it's the house I grew up in since I was two years old, and I'm just praying that it didn't put a hole in the roof.

We were going to take our side by side out to the old homeplace today and check all the tree damage, but since we have to drive up a little hill, and it's an extension of our driveway, which is still solid ice, we've decided not to risk it. We know from pictures we've seen all around us that we have a lot of trees down, but that's minor, compared to peoples' homes and livelihood. 

Hubby did get the limbs cleared out of the driveway down to the main road day before yesterday, but his truck barely made a dent on the ice when he drove it back and forth over it down to the main road yesterday. I can barely walk in the house, so I have not even tried to go outside yet. Thankfully, we still have what we need and nowhere we have to be for a few days, so we are ok.

There will be a lot of tree damage to clean up when it warms up, but we are so grateful that none of it fell on our house or car. We are also grateful that our niece and nephew have checked on us and offered to bring us anything we need, although it would have to be a matter of life or death before we asked them to get out on these treacherous roads. 

Pray for all who are still trapped in "Fern's" ice, struggling to get their lives back, and there are many, scattered over multiple states.