PAINTINGS FOR THE POWDER ROOM

Paintings for the Powder Room

A little while back John from Ambler in the United States, commissioned a painting specifically to hang in his rather well-decorated powder room.  Being a large powder room, the painting was reasonably large too.  He sent a photo of the artwork in place and it did look grand.

As we know, most bathrooms, toilets, loos, water closets and the like are not always roomy. Many rooms that are completely dedicated to the actual toilet bowl are quite small and paintings for these places should be smallish too.

This brings me to the subject of small paintings. I've been thinking about it for some time and last week I actually started a regime of small daily paintings.

It reminded me of when I first started to paint and did hundreds of small works for sale on eBay.  It doesn't sound very glamorous but it was very successful on two counts. Firstly, I sold every single painting I put up for auction! The starting price was always 99c and it always went much higher - higher than I ever thought possible.

Secondly and more importantly, the constant painting of small works of similar content, built up my skill base.  Painting small means getting stuff done quicker, or it should. Doing five little seascapes in a session means learning quickly about lots of things including colour mixing and composition.

Having started this small painting thing, I know it's sharpening my skills again - I can feel it. 

Getting bogged down in paintings that take weeks can take a toll on our patience, sometimes on our skills and even our interest.  Small paintings that take an hour or less can refresh the mind and inspire us as artists.

But back to this toilet stuff. Is there any place really that has such a captive audience? An audience that is just ready to contemplate whatever is before them.

Small paintings are perfect for a space that everyone is forced to inhabit.  A word of warning though. If you do choose to put a work of art in the little room - make it worthwhile. There is no point in putting decor art there or a messy abstract. You need something contemplative like a dreamy beach scene or similar….something the 'sitter' can partake of mentally.

Make your water closet into special place by getting some art in there - it could be the next big thing in the art world!

Happy painting

Mike Barr