Bathroom sink

 

This is the bathroom sink in the upper rotunda men’s bathroom in the aforementioned Museum where I work. I fell in love with its chrome metal fixtures and the abstract shapes in its reflections. The painting, as of right now, isn’t finished. I would like it to have the same smooth crispness of the chrome faucet and whatever those other two metal things are called. 

The MFA has been my other home for decades, I’ve washed my hands in this sink a gazillion times so I guess that’s why I decided to paint a picture of it. Also I love the age old simple process of looking very carefully and trying to record what I see. First I start with a pencil. It’s just me and my canvas in the zone, nothing else. I use my pencil to take all the time I need to measure carefully what I see and try to get it down on the canvas, using the photo as reference. Then it gets my black and white acrylic paint treatment of refinement to get started with the darks and lights. After that I dive in with the oils to give it a bit of color and further refinement.

When I was done with the oils for the time being on this painting, I again fell into the old thought hole which I should pledge to avoid from now on and forever. It goes like this: “How many paintings are there in the world that look like this one, and why do we need another?” None of that matters. Repeat, none of that matters. Good by useless thought hole!