Featured on CBS Sunday Morning

Something is always brewing in Gerard Tonti's studio — literally. The Pittsburgh-born artist paints with coffee and tea.

This graphic designer-by-day used to paint the old-fashioned way, with paint, until the day he became fascinated by the vibrant color of his cup of green tea.

"I thought, 'Well, I know that they can be used as stains; I wonder if I can bind this and make this into a painting medium, what that would be like?'"

The actual painting requires a bit of a juggling act in Tonti's basement studio, which doubles as a sort of chemistry lab where he brews his colors.

"I'll set the easels up, work on a piece — you can see I have several going at the same time — but I'm actually brewing and making paint as I'm working."

And what else to drip his paints on but a layered surface of coffee filters.

Getting a full spectrum of colors requires Tonti to buy coffee and tea from around the world, shipped to his home outside Pittsburgh that he shares with his wife and two children — like a special tea from Thailand that is blue.

"For me, it's all about the challenge. You know, it's been about the process and the challenge. I think if somebody can look at a piece and it makes them feel warm like, you know, a warm cup of coffee in a coffee shop, I think the job's done."