I’m sharing Sylvan Tea with you who is a tea friend and incredibly talented artist!

I love the way Amber incorporates animals and tea into her artwork. I recently commissioned a custom piece with a gaiwan and penguins! You can also find a wide range of items in her shop from postcards to tea towels!

Please check out more about Sylvan Tea below and check out her shop!

She will be having some deals on Small Business Saturday on her items and she is open for commissions!

Can you tell us a little bit about you and your passion for art?

I've loved art ever since I was a little kid. Along with writing, art has always been a necessary outlet for my self expression. When I was a child, I drew animals almost exclusively, and in my middle school years I explored drawing humans in a manga style. In my teen years, though, I stopped drawing in favor of photography, and once I was in university getting my English degree, I focused solely on my writing. But I was still interested in art, and always made it a priority to visit art museums and dive into art history, both academically and on my own time. After releasing two books of poetry and starting my career in writing and editorial work, I found myself without much of a creative outlet, since I was putting so much work into writing for my job that I had no energy left to do it for myself at home. At the tail end of 2014 my husband, Arthur, encouraged me to pick up art again. I was both excited and nervous about it because it had been so long since I had drawn anything, but I practiced every day on my ferry rides to and from work. And as I chose different subjects to draw, I found that I was going back to what I was drawn to in my childhood: animals. It seems that's hard-wired into me at this point. The rest is history.

2020 has been a big year of change for my art. After years of developing technique and exploring my style, I wanted to see what would happen if I stripped my style back to its roots. Early on in the pandemic I started drawing some super simple, raw brush pen drawings of what are now known as the Tea Creatures. The tea community loved them, so I kept drawing them to help lift people's spirits. And in doing that, they lifted my spirits too. Those simple drawings helped me break free of some of the constraints I had imposed on my art and myself. And in an odd, beautiful way, the wildness and freedom of those critters bled over into my sumi ink and watercolor paintings too.

Incorporating tea imagery into my animal drawings has given me a whole whimsical world to build upon, and every day I'm excited to see where it takes me. Art has been a guiding light in my life in both good times and bad, and I can't imagine my life without it.

Was there a catalyst that pushed you to open your shop?

I had wanted to open my own shop for a while, originally with a focus on selling tea and teaware. That's still one of the goals I have for Sylvan Tea. When the pandemic hit, I had to put tea sourcing on hold, so I racked my brain wondering what other things of value I could bring to the world. When I saw how positively the tea community reacted to my art, I realized that I had something to offer. So far I've made art prints, hand-pulled linocut prints, postcards, and hand-painted totes. I have more totes on the way, plus some forthcoming tea towels. And as my shop starts to pick up steam, I can create even more items for tea and art enthusiasts. And one day there will be some tea in the shop too.

What is your personal tea ritual like?

I have a few different rituals. I always make tea first thing in the morning after I'm all showered and dressed. I check in with my body and I feel what kind of tea I need for that moment. The tea my body wants is what dictates the ritual. Chinese and Taiwanese teas get gongfu brewed, but there's one Dong Ding in my cabinet right now that I actually prefer bowl-brewed. Japanese loose leaf gets brewed in my trusty kyusu. I try to focus only on the tea when I make my first cup, but after that I find that I can multitask well, and that incorporating tea into my work brings calm and peace to my day.
Matcha plays a strong role in my tea ritual too. But I don't multitask when I have matcha! Because I'm a chanoyu student, even my casual matcha sessions include elements of tea ceremony that I've learned from my sensei, and to make tea in this way requires focus. I find that doing these motions, even in a casual setting, brings me great comfort and reinforces my formal tea practice as well. And because I'm a student of the Omotesenke school, I always whisk my tea in the "pond" style". I love watching the pond form in the froth after I make a big circle with my chasen.

Do you have a favorite animal to illustrate?

It's so hard to choose! Lately I've enjoyed illustrating bears and small birds. In the past I went through a big turkey vulture phase. But if I had to choose one animal, it would have to be the pangolin. I've always been drawn to gentle, endangered animals, and pangolins hold a very special place in my heart. I love painting each scale and drawing their cute little faces and claws.