In the beginning...

Every project must have a beginning and this one has been brewing for a while. My downstairs toilet is basically a non-room. It's too small to do anything with, apart from making it into a big cupboard and apparently downstairs toilets are quite desirable in a house these days, so it remains a toilet.

But it's a pretty manky toilet, it is never used (as a toilet) and has not had anything done to it since we moved in, apart from being re-painted. It has become a dumping ground (if you'll pardon the pun) for unwanted bits of IKEA furniture, some buckets and now the cat litter box is in there. So at least something is using it as a toilet. I have to delicately flush it at least once a day otherwise the limescaled up filth box that is the cistern fills up and overflows out the front of the house via the overflow pipe. I say delicately because the plastic cistern has a nasty crack in it, which I'm sure is held together by the aforementioned limescale, so it requires an experienced touch.

I would like to replace the toilet and have had the brainwave to "do it myself". Eventually. How hard can it be right? But for now, after months of extra-curricular work taking up my spare time, I am chomping at the bit to get my art on and create an eye-popping mural-filled room.

Let's get something straight here though, I am NOT an artist. I couldn't draw to save my life. But a number of years ago, just to brighten up our house I drew and painted a Simpsons style picture of Mulder & Scully on one of our doors. I basically copied it from a magazine using "the grid method" to enlarge it on to the door. Painstakingly measuring points on the grids and re-drawing it on the door. It actually looked pretty good. I then proceeded to do ALL the doors in our house. Rolling on a few years my interest in Rock Art and Gig Posters blossomed into a rather sweet collection of Cramps (one of my favourite bands) posters. So I have got to know work by various artists such as Coop, Kozik, R.Black, etc. and have a few books of poster art which are very cool.

So what to do? A couple of months ago a Burlesque poster book caught my eye and I thought how cool it would be to give this non-room a Burlesque style make-over. I was intrigued by the posters announcing bizarre acts and the general style of the posters and thought it would make a great theme. I finally got around to buying said book and at the same time treated myself to the Art Of Modern Rock (Mini #2) for some extra research and inspiration.

While skimming through the AoMR book, I found a really ace poster by Stainboy (this one here) and all the thoughts of Burlesque have suddenly taken a back seat to the idea of painting a picture like that. Then while looking at the Stainboy website I found another image that I liked even better (this one). Same kind of style - woman and car - but better. Although in this one the woman isn't carrying a big shotgun. Shame!

So...I plan to have a mix of Burlesque and "low-brow" rock art in my downstairs toilet. The progress of which you will be able to follow on here.