Sometimes I feel as if I will never finish this project of sketching my entire teacup collection as it keeps growing!

But the latest one is very special….

Teacup 36: Royal Albert Moonlight Rose

I was recently given two Royal Albert Moonlight Rose teacups which belonged to my Aunt. This cup design and colour scheme is excessively pretty and really makes me think of my Aunt who passed away a few years ago. So it’s s real treasure to now have something of hers and it’s been delightful to drink out of this cup for the last few weeks.

This design is basically a blue version of Royal Albert’s famous Old Country Roses. I have often thought that a teacup collection would be lacking without an OCR cup and saucer, so now I’m happy to have Moonlight Rose as a substitute. As blue is a favourite colour of mine I have to say that I prefer it over the yellow and pink/red design of OCR. (Just for the record I do like OCR… it’s just that Moonlight Rose is more my colours!)

Another reason why this cup is special is for another memory it evokes. My mum had a Royal Albert Memory Lane tea set and I absolutely loved it. It has a blue flower pattern and this same cup shape (Montrose cup shape). Sadly she doesn’t have any of it left now, but drinking out of this blue Montrose cup makes me think of my mum and my childhood as well.

Teacup 37: T2 Adriana Picker Tall Cup and Saucer

Two teacups in two days! I’m on a roll. This is another new cup – T2 Adriana Picker Tall Cup and Saucer. It has a really nice cup shape and handle. I have added a number of tall cups in the past year or so, but this is the only teacup in my collection with a handle of this design. This is Number 37 as I sketch my way through my teacup collection.

As for the pink floral pattern, it’s a little hard to see in my super quick version, but it’s rather beautiful and rich. This is a cup which I can sketch many times as the pattern on the saucer is not symmetrical and will be fun to see which position I prefer. This pattern has a similar feel to one of my most sketched cups – my pink Melbourne teacup – which I sketched as number 13 in this project.

Teacup 38: Colclough Vintage cup

So what happens if I just paint freely without worrying about achieving perfect ellipses or accuracy? The answer is nearly always more interesting watercolour! And hey, there is a chance that I’ll work too big and run off the page!

This is a vintage Colclough cup which is a lot of fun to sketch as the pattern is simple but colourful.

Teacup trivia: The backstamp at the bottom of the saucer tells me that this dates from 1945-48. I love looking up backstamps and working out the age of teacups. I even have a book of stamps but it’s in storage at the moment, so I just looked this date up online!

Teacup 39: T2 yellow cup

Another totally crazy teacup sketch! I’m in the mood to experiment with wet and juicy loose watercolour strokes… and just live with the result.

This is the teacup which I have sketched the most. It was my daily cup for a number years back when I did a couple of teacup sketches a week. In fact I just discovered that I purchased it in Jan 2011 – see my first sketch of it here.

This cup reminds me of the momentous period in my life when I transitioned from working as an architect to teaching and sketching full time. So it brings back memories of lots of ups and downs (trust me, there were a lot of difficult times!)

I used it for workshop demos as well and I even took it to interstate workshops – hence the comment about breakage in Launceston!

It’s also my most famous teacup… as it appeared on the label of the small spiral bound Stillman & Birn Zeta book back in 2013. 🙂

I’m trying to wrap up this project in the next few weeks. I still have 10 or so cups still to go! (I’m not sure if I will include the cracked ones or glue the broken ones together for the purposes of sketching them.)