Waterlooville artist pays tribute to Sycamore Gap tree by painting on used tea bags

Caroline West, 50, has used her passion for art and nature to create paintings of the Northumberland tree in different settings. The much photographed and visited sycamore was cut down overnight between September 27 and 28 2023, which sparked widespread anger and upset.

Caroline was ‘devastated’ by the ‘senseless’ act and to pay homage to the tree one year on from the felling, she has created various art pieces.

Caroline said: “I love nature and my artwork has always been inspired by nature and I love trees – I just think they’re amazing and they’ve all got a story to tell and it was just a really senseless thing to have happened.

“I’ve been painting British landmarks (on tea bags) for a little while and this was just something that really jumped out at me when I was doing research on landmarks.

“It’s inspired loads of artists and poets and creative people for a very long time, so it’s just something that I really wanted to capture.”

In order to make the creative tributes, she began by drying out used tea bags, cutting them up, scraping out all the tea and ironing them flat.

The edges were then taped, the tea bags were placed on backing paper, a base layer was applied and then she used acrylic paint to create the four different scenes.

She began painting the miniature works of art roughly two to three months ago, with her favourite being the autumn one.

Caroline added: “I could paint endless ones of them because there’s so many beautiful scenes of it you can do with the different seasons and different skies.

“They’re all quite fiddly – they all involve a small brush and lots of squinting.

“You read all the stories about it – I think there’s been marriage proposals there, people have scattered ashes there.

“It just obviously means a lot to different people and it’s just a really iconic British landmark.”

Aside from the Sycamore Gap tree series, Caroline has painted other popular landmarks on used tea bags since August 2023 including Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, Tower Bridge, in London and Durdle Door, in Dorset.

She added: “I sold one tea bag of Durdle Door which someone bought because that’s where they had their first date and they proposed to their future wife there.

“I just think it’s a really lovely way to commemorate something.”

For more information about Caroline’s artwork, click here.