Leonardo da Vinci used to suggest that art students “look at any walls spotted with various stains,” so as to “arouse the mind to various inventions.” Sandro Botticelli liked to throw a sponge wet with colored paints against a wall, then search out new landscapes in the resulting splatter.—Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World
This is a fun little cubicle Rorschach activity that I ripped off of Dave Gray. I found it while reading through Bill Keaggy‘s “100 Pieces of Paper and The Stories Behind Them.”
I switched from coffee to tea at work, so every morning I take an index card and set my tea bag down on it, letting the card soak up the tea. Then, I shop for images on the card, and riff off those with some doodles and captions.
Nothing serious, just fun way to pass a couple minutes and find some ideas. You could probably do it with coffee rings, too. They’d be like little ensos.
Tea vs. Coffee!
I happened upon your blog via the story about you & the Winston Smith Green Day album cover. And, as funny things go, I’ve been recently doing a similar sketchbook-type project with coffee rings. I’ve just begun putting these up, but you can take a peek here.
I’ve shared this on my tumblr as well, lauriebreaker.tumblr.com, and feel free to link me up if you’d like, or if you’re ever up for a tea-bag stain vs coffee ring battle (or collaboration?) please give me a shout!
Cheers,
Laura
Thanks for sharing, Laurie!
Bruce Turner posted his first attempt on Twitter:
Cool dude. Clouds, stains, clumps of foliage, all great fodder for the imagination.
Ha! This is a very nice non-digital distraction for the brain..
Reminds me of Colin Ware’s random squiggles + thoughtfully placed dot + wedge = bird
Thanks, ya’ll.
Paul, do you have a link for that Colin Ware work?
Matt Madden has posted an activity that could be really complimentary—I’d like to merge the two…maybe let the teabags drop, and then draw panels, then draw…
Hi, great stuff here. Doodle on! I think Dali wrote about this method, he had a great name too: paranoid critical method. It also suggests how the old school witches read tea leafs. mmmmmmm tea!
Thanks, Paul! Here’s more on Dali’s paranoiac-critical method and Max Ernst’s frottage technique, too.
These are great!!