The Humble Virtues of a Cup of Tea

Here in New Hampshire, it's supposedly spring, but that doesn't mean it isn't the season for many warm cups of sweet, milky tea curled up in an overstuffed chair with a book, by a glowing fire if possible.

"Tea is wealth itself, because there is nothing that cannot be lost, no problem that will not disappear, no burden that will not float away, between the first sip and the last."

The cups in this post were all painted by British artist Diarmuid Kelley

I used to think that quote issued from no less an authority than Thoreau. But Henry David, on the contrary, frowned on tea, along with coffee, dismissing both as foreign and pernicious extravagances, artificial stimulants inimical to living simply and deliberately.

But in this I believe the anarchist of Puritan New England was mistaken.

"You can never get a cup of  tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." 

- C.S. Lewis 

“I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.” 

― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.” 

- Bill Waterson

“As far as her mom was concerned, tea fixed everything. Have a cold? Have some tea. Broken bones? There's a tea for that too. Somewhere in her mother's pantry, Laurel suspected, was a box of tea that said, 'In case of Armageddon, steep three to five minutes'.”

- Aprillyne Pike

“If you are cold, tea will warm you;
if you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you;
If you are excited, it will calm you.” 

- William Gladstone

“Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.” 

- Sydney Smith

(All cups by Diarmuid Kelley)

Send me your favorite tea quotes and paintings and I'll happily add them here.

"Old Master" Orange

I've been loving studying "old master" techniques using still life subjects. I'm using a limited palette, in this case to create a Caravaggio-like "tenebrism" - i.e., dark, almost featureless backgrounds with highly contrasting, strongly directional lighting of the main subject. Applying several glazes of translucent paint layers lets me build up a glossy surface into which light passes and bounces back out, creating a luminosity that seems to come from within the painting. This luminosity is one of the advantages of using oils, so I figure might as well take the time to do it and let the medium be its best self once in a while.

I've done apples, pears, grapes, and lemons using these techniques. This particular still life is 4x6. It's a commission, along with a matching pear that I'll be starting on next. I love doing these! When they work, it's like a spiritual experience of a little piece of nature fixed inside a frame. I will probably be doing these for the rest of my life.