Still life: bathroom scenes, colour splashes

Now its time for a journey into the inner sanctum, the bathroom of all places. Everyone has one, or maybe more and spends a lot of time there, so why not make a few paintings? Here is our towel rack with an old faded blue hand towel, and part of the counter top and mirror visible. At the top there is a light switch on the left and the bottom part of 'Great Wave' a print by Hokusai. This painting tested many of my still life skills such as shiny things, fabric, and reflections. 

Towel rack, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

This porcelain cat is hollowed out in the back making way for the toilette brush. It sits dutifully all the time, keeping the implement handy for when its needed. In the background corner, there is a new water detection unit that can shut off our main water valve if flooding is detected. There are little detector pucks around the condo now, to protect against water damage. 

Porcelain cat, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

If you made it this far into today's blog, then what were you expecting? Here is a painting of incense burning on top of the toilette. In the upper left is an aqua-painting we obtained in Ottawa, the artist made it by putting paint on top of a bin of water, then placing the paper on top, and skillfully pulling it off, leaving interesting patterns and an image of a red tulip. A black lighter is visible on the counter. Catching the gloomy amber lighting was key, I used a head lamp (white diode light) to judge the colours correctly. 

Incense, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, December 2025 

No, this is not a painting of what was in the toilette, although it could be... this is what was on the backs of these paintings, well, front. In 2005 I did a series of colour-splash paintings, where the paint is applied in great big puddles then allowed to dry over the course of days, then repeated a few times. When cut up into smaller sections, the results are sometimes fantastic like this one. 

Colour splash 1, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, 2005 

Here is another image of the back of the painting, it was part of a large piece. In elementary school I did a project where I created fabric dyes from household ingredients like beet root or turmeric for example. When complete, I dumped all the various materials from which I had extracted dyes into the toilette and flushed... that looked like the painting indeed. I am afraid to search the internet, but surely, toilette bowl art is a thing. 

Colour splash 2 ,watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, 2005