An interesting commission (painted in tea and coffee) from the students of the exiting professor of Cardio Physiology. The four quads of his former college realised as the atriums, ventricles, major veins and arteries of the heart.
The flight of starlings is a little reference to Starling’s Law, a mechanism that governs bloodflow within the heart. As there was no small amount of concept attached to this commission I also decided to paint in tea and coffee instead of conventional watercolour – caffeine is well known for its effect on the heart.
For anyone considering painting in tea and coffee for themselves, tea comes highly recommended, coffee a little less so. Both require an immense amount of time and patience to build up to anything resembling an opaque colour. That colour however, for tea in particular, is wonderfully rich and deliciously flat. Unlike detail work in gouache or watercolour you won’t get unsightly brush marks at all. Coffee (instant works, fresh does not) works for a cooler tone and may also be darker if diluted less.
