Today I needed to replace my toothbrush and rather than toss the used one I decided to use it to revisit one of my fan favorite paintings, my Lily Pads from the Detroit Zoo. I saw a reel a while back of someone painting with an old toothbrush, although that was in acrylic and a very different style than how I paint. But using that as a jumping point, I figured I’d be able to paint a lot looser with the toothbrush, because frankly, how could you not. Wanted to have a comparison between my usual style and what I could do with the toothbrush so I tried to capture a similar composition to the original.

The end result is certainly much looser than the original, but still identifiable as lily pads. I like both paintings, even though the original definitely fits my usual style better.

Have you ever used a toothbrush or other repurposed tool as a paintbrush?