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Most people see a used tea bag as something ready for the trash, but Ruby Silvious sees a tiny canvas waiting to be transformed. Her delicate paintings turn these stained, wrinkled surfaces into miniature scenes filled with landscapes, flowers, animals, people, and other carefully observed details.
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For the New York-based artist, that has often meant turning something most people would simply throw away- a used tea bag- into a miniature canvas for detailed paintings and unexpected compositions.has featured Silvious’ work several times over the years, and her more recent pieces continue to explore just how much can fit onto these tiny, imperfect surfaces. Landscapes, flowers, animals, people, everyday objects, and even playing cards appear across stained and wrinkled tea bags, sometimes contained within a single piece and other times spread across several bags to form one larger image.
The folds, torn edges, seams, and natural discoloration of the material are not hidden away; instead, they become part of the finished artwork. Silvious first gained widespread attention with her “363 Days of Tea” project, during which she created a new work on an emptied tea bag for 363 consecutive days. Since then, her experiments have expanded far beyond tea, with eggshells, leaves, wine corks, vintage envelopes, paper bags, and receipts all becoming unconventional surfaces for painting and collage.
Her tea bag paintings, however, remain especially connected to her travels, often functioning like tiny visual memories of places, objects, and moments encountered along the way. Through these miniature works, Silvious encourages viewers to reconsider what an artwork, or an art material, can be. Scroll down to see some of her more recent tea bag creations, and let us know which piece caught your eye the most. Hey Pandas!
I’m Tarik, a Community Manager at Bored Panda. Day-to-day, I help creators present their posts in the best possible way, spotlight great work, and keep an eye on community activity so discussions stay welcoming, constructive, and fun. Before joining Bored Panda, I worked in freelance writing and project coordination/management at my alma mater.
Outside work, you’ll find me carving corners on my motorcycle, falling into history-related rabbit holes, keeping up with politics, and occasionally building scale models or Lego “for five minutes” that turns into an entire evening. I also have a weakness for bold colors, sunsets, and wonderfully strange animals. Hey Pandas! I’m Tarik, a Community Manager at Bored Panda.
Day-to-day, I help creators present their posts in the best possible way, spotlight great work, and keep an eye on community activity so discussions stay welcoming, constructive, and fun. Before joining Bored Panda, I worked in freelance writing and project coordination/management at my alma mater. Outside work, you’ll find me carving corners on my motorcycle, falling into history-related rabbit holes, keeping up with politics, and occasionally building scale models or Lego “for five minutes” that turns into an entire evening.
I also have a weakness for bold colors, sunsets, and wonderfully strange animals. By entering your email and clicking Subscribe, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and
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