Unexpected Painting Subjects.  Yup, that’s today’s focus. (I kinda want to say “unexpected flying objects” but that takes us a bit off topic!)

So let me take you to Costa Rica. Imagine being surrounded by lush green mountains, colourful flowers, shifting mist, dazzling light, and views that truly beg to be painted.

Now imagine choosing to paint a bathroom.

I know, right? Who paints a bathroom with all that gorgeousness around them?? 

So here’s the story.

On our art retreat, we had the most wonderful yoga-come-art studio to work in. Windows looked out into layers of tropical green. The light was beautiful. Just being in that space felt good.

And tucked into one corner of the studio was a small bathroom.

Each day that we worked in the studio, I would see a slice of that little room through the doorway. A sink. Blue tiles. A mirror. A bit of floor. Plumbing hanging underneath the basin.

Hardly an obvious painting choice, certainly not the grand Costa Rican subject one might choose to paint!

Yet every time I saw it, I noticed that wonderful arrangement of colour and light. The saturated blue walls with light floor tiles. The way the mirror reflected the blue and light. The long curve of the sink. The dark shapes beneath it. That narrow vertical slice of a room.

It kept catching my eye.

And that is the thing about unexpected painting subjects: they’re often not the subjects we think we’re supposed to paint. Yet they can be the ones that quietly, insistently, keep calling us back.

What are you really drawn to?

Being in a beautiful place can carry a strange sort of pressure. You feel you ought to paint the view. The mountain. The waterfall. The sweeping landscape. The glorious and exotic flowers. A scene that says, unmistakably, “Costa Rica.”

And of course, those scenes are not unexpected painting subjects – they are just the opposite! And, they may draw you in.

But sometimes they just don’t. And that’s okay.

The important question is not: What should I paint while I’m here?

It’s: What has caught my eye?

Because that’s speaks to your vision. To your uniqueness. And, that’s where your attention has gone.

On the day I finally had some time to paint, I did a lot of shoulding and coulding – I should go out and paint a scene in the landscape, I could go down to the river, I could go over to the main building, I could paint from my cabin, I should paint those tropical plants. But in the end, I listened to the pitter patter of my heart, the yearning and delight it felt every time I caught a glance of that slice of blue. 

Certainly there was the possibility of a rain shower and that made an indoor subject rather appealing! But the weather was not the real reason I chose this scene. The reason was I’d already been noticing it, day after day.

The threat of rain simply gave me permission to stop searching elsewhere and paint what had been right in front of me all along, even if it was perhaps an unusual painting subject in the lushness of our Costa Rican environment!!

Starting with the pattern, not the bathroom

Although colour was what initially pulled me in, I didn’t just jump in and paint the blue tiles, sink, mirror, and pipes. First, I composed and simplified what I was looking at into three values. 

I didn’t need the outside walls so the composition needed to be a narrow vertical format. Making a thumbnail, I divided the whole into shapes of darks, lights and middle values. This is where thumbnails are sooooo useful. They help take us away from naming the objects in front of us towards seeing the structure of what makes up the scene and eventually, the painting.

Not: There’s the mirror. There’s the sink. There’s the soap dish.

Rather: What are the large shapes? Where is the light? What is the pattern that holds this whole thing together?

I then drew the composition in vine charcoal on UART 400 paper. The drawing was fairly loose, just enough to locate the major divisions in the vertical format.

Letting the blues take over

Once I began applying pastel, the subject became even less about “bathroom” and more about colour. Purple. Blue. Turquoise. Ohhhh, what a pleasure!

My first layer was dark purple, and a light and mid-value blue-green. It was about establishing the value areas from my thumbnail into broad blocks of colour quickly. 

Then, because I didn’t want the piece to be overcome by cool blues, I started to add a warm ochre (mid-value yellow).

As the painting developed, I started to make more decisions about the temperature of the blues. Some pushed towards green. Others moved towards purple.

And then there were the tiny warm notes: a bit of ochre in the basin, the floor, the mirror and a small hit of orange-red near the basin. With so much blue in the painting, those small warm marks had real power. But they didn’t need to shout to make a point.

The subject becomes the painting

At some point in the painting process, an interesting thing happens. The subject you started with begins to recede, and the painting takes over.

Yes, this is recognisably a sink in a blue bathroom. You can see the mirror, the basin, the faucet, the plumbing, the tiles.

But those are not what hold my attention in the finished piece.

What I notice is the luminous pattern of cool colour. The bright vertical shapes held inside the darker surrounding blue. The way the basin moves across the painting. The little flash of orange against all that turquoise and purple. The warm texture of the paper shimmering through.

The bathroom gave me the arrangement. The painting became about something more.

Looking at the finished piece in black and white is a useful reminder that colour alone cannot carry a painting. However irresistible those blues may be, the structure still matters.

The colour may have caught my eye. The value pattern helped make it work.

A Slice of Blue Loo

And so, surrounded by the vast green abundance of Costa Rica, I painted A Slice of Blue Loo.

It still makes me smile. When I look at it, I feel the studio around me, the wood beneath my bare feet, the soft swish of the bamboo outside, the bird calls, the smell of incoming rain. Among the many unexpected painting subjects that have ended up on paper, this may be one of my favourites!!

Would a mist-covered mountain scene have made more sense? Perhaps. Would a lush tropical landscape have been more obviously connected to where I was? Absolutely.

But it was this unexpected painting subject that wanted my attention.

I think we sometimes overlook possible paintings because the subject doesn’t seem worthy enough. It’s too ordinary. Too strange. Too small. Too unglamorous. Maybe even too ugly. Or it’s simply not the thing we imagine we should be painting in that particular moment.

But a painting does not need to begin with a grand subject.

It needs to begin with your undeniable interest and curiosity about something that’s attracted your attention.

A sink in a bathroom can offer a pattern of light and colour every bit as compelling as a sweeping view. A row of bins can stop you in your tracks. A passing figure, a pile of laundry, a shadow on the floor, a doorway, a quiet corner – any of these can become a painting when something in them makes you look again.

And perhaps that’s the reminder I want to leave with you: The next time you’re looking for something to paint, and something ordinary and unexpected catches your eye, don’t worry about whether the subject is impressive enough.

Notice that it did catch your eye.

Then trust that.

Because sometimes, even in glorious Costa Rica, the painting is in the bathroom.

Now I’d love to hear from you! What unexpected painting subjects have caught your eye? Have you ever painted an ordinary or downright peculiar subject simply because something about it grabbed your attention? Tell us about it in the comments – extra points if it made other people wonder why on earth you chose to paint that!

Until next time,

~ Gail

PS. Speaking of bins, here’s one of my colour study demos for the group plus thumbnail! You see? I’d definitely put this in the category of unexpected painting subjects!