It’s a little hard to define clearly how many teacups I have in my collection. But basically I am counting all the cups and saucers that I own which I have drunk tea out of. 

I’m not counting the cup and saucers that I use for my morning coffees even though these are technically referred to as ‘teacups’ by the manufacturers. So the total number in my collection is a little arbitrary.

This article contains a bit of a random collection of teacups…. gifts, old cups and cracked ones!

Teacup 45: T2 Blue and black checkerboard

This is one of my cracked cups that I have glued back together for the sake of sketching it. Although not an exciting pattern in real life, this design is a lot of fun to sketch. I especially like the band inside the cup.

Teacup 46: Jane Austen Cup by Zinnia Pea

This was a gift and includes a includes saucer, plate and teapot. I didn’t get a chance to sketch the full set this time (see here for more), but each item includes a lovely hand-written Austen quote:

• The back of the cup: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”
• The saucer: “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good book [sic], must be intolerably stupid.”
• The plate: “How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!”
• The back of the teapot: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Two Miss Bingley quotes and one Mr Tilney quote is nicely obscure! Do you know which is which?

Teacup 47: Paraty Cup by Otto

This cup was a gift from a Paraty local during the Urban Sketchers symposium in 2014. On the morning of the last day, I saw a man (Paulo) walking the streets drinking tea  and asked if I could sketch his tea. Thankfully he turned out to be an urban sketcher. Later that day he gave me a gift – this German teacup and saucer plus a Mate gourd. Read more about this fun story here.

Teacup 48: Best friend cup by Living Art by Stoneage

This cup (plus a saucer and plate) was given to me by my best friend years ago. It includes an illustration of two girls drinking tea (or coffee at a cafe) and it has a fun oval shaped saucer and plate. I used to drink tea out of this, but now it’s more of a coffee cup.

Teacup 49: Blue and Yellow tea for one (Made in Thailand)

This was another gift – from the friend who has given me a number of tea related gifts (such as my gorgeous Coalport cup). It’s one of the earliest cup and saucers in my collection. The saucer, which I didn’t sketch this time, is blue with a trim of yellow.

Those of you who have done Foundations will have seen this before. It is a perfect object for some of my Abstracting Shape exercises.

Teacup 50: Blue and Yellow Striped by Verdi

This is the first cup and saucer which I personally purchased. It dates back to the early 90s when I was really into yellow and blue. (I think Teacup 49 was gifted to me this same period of my life.)

This cup was bought mainly as decoration as at that time I was drinking my tea in tall thin rimmed bone china mugs. BTW I’ve been a snob about only drinking tea out of thin rimmed china since my teenage years!

Teacup 51: My Toy Teaset

The start of my tea cup collection… but I have no idea of when I was given this or whether it was a present from my Nanna or one of my Aunts. I’m missing the lids and two cups (out of four) but still have all the saucers and plates. I have numerous memories of playing with this set as a little girl.

Teacup 52: ‘Watercolour’ cup

Back to more recent cups which are cracked…

It’s another T2 design  – called Dazed and Dazzled.

I refer to it as my watercolour cup as it’s the one I bought to celebrate the launch of SketchingNow Watercolour! At the time I thought I needed more pink cups, but I now know (thanks to this project) that I have lots of them. Perhaps I also wanted another pastel cup!

Teacup 53:T2 Milan Flower Market

And lastly, for today, here is a cup which I haven’t glued back together.

I bought this shortly after returning home after my big European Trip in 2016. On this trip I sketched Milan (for the first time) and Mike and I planned the Palladian Odyssey Veneto Tour. So this cup makes me think of Palladian Odyssey!

This is such a fun colourful design but one that is almost impossible to sketch quickly with lots of wet in wet. All the colours merge in ways that I don’t want.

Okay…

I’m almost at the end of my collection but I have one more cup to share – my most precious one! And then this big project which I started in Jan last year will be over.