He’s already won over the internet thanks to his remarkable artworks.
Now Hector Janse van Rensburg has done it a second time after a moment of bath-time inspiration that puts Archimedes’ Eureka moment to shame.
While Archimedes went on to achieve scientific glory, Hector got a basket of shower products. And a car.
Well, a car of sorts…
Friend of the President
Hector is better known as Shitty Watercolour, the artist whose works first wowed Reddit and have since won over Twitter.
When he is not studying for his philosophy, politics and economics degree at the University of York, Hector is busy creating striking watercolour vignettes – of people, famous and not so famous, and of the thoughts inside his remarkable mind.
The last time we caught up with Hector he told us of his shining moment: winning the heart of President Barack Obama with his portrait.
He is so famous on Reddit that one of its creators used his Shitty_Watercolour profile to promote a new feature of the website at US arts fest South by South West.
Making a splash
Then Hector got a new waterproof smartphone.
He was messing about with it in the bath and took this pic:
Wondering what to do with it he hit upon his Eureka moment – and he Tweeted out the pic like this:
Good morning. despite the alluring exploration of the male form combined with a strong brand placement this is not a sponsored tweet pic.twitter.com/4swbw3V7E1
— Shitty Watercolour (@SWatercolour) May 6, 2017
People loved it, and it got nearly 4K likes and hundreds of retweets. And it got two responses from Radox. The first was a tweet in reply:
@SWatercolour Male form looking into the void + Radox bottle = modern day Existentialism ??✨
— RadoxUK (@RadoxUK) May 8, 2017
And then this direct message:
Next stop, Aston Martin
That got Hector thinking.
He took another bath-time photograph, now with his freebie Radox products.
And he added a quick sketch of an Aston Martin car, leading to this…
hmm pic.twitter.com/NRwj7IwjQM
— Shitty Watercolour (@SWatercolour) May 10, 2017
“You guys can take it from here,” Radox tweeted to Aston Martin.
And Aston Martin came back with this…
@RadoxUK @SWatercolour Can we tempt you with some slightly smaller vrooms…? pic.twitter.com/jvSRgCz3LO
— Aston Martin (@astonmartin) May 10, 2017
@astonmartin @RadoxUK a cute lil vroomer for sure I just hope radox works with tears instead of bath water
— Shitty Watercolour (@SWatercolour) May 10, 2017
@SWatercolour Unfortunately that's testing our field of expertise, Mr Watercolour. But we'll get the model car wrapped up for you!
— Aston Martin (@astonmartin) May 10, 2017
Visiting the factory
“After they sent me the shampoo and stuff I knew I was going to take another picture,” Hector told YorkMix.
“I had to pick a brand to be the subject of it. There’s a science behind it – how high do you aim? What do you ask for? What is achievable?
“But obviously I didn’t expect a car. I was just doing it for the comedy.”
And the gift of a model car wasn’t Aston Martin’s only response.
“They also reached out over DM – and I think I’m going to their factory on Monday to look around. Which is bizarre.”
If Aston Martin are planning to surprise Hector with a £200,000 Vanquish S, they should know one thing.
Hector can’t drive.
Plans for the future
Hector is about to take his finals at University of York.
After that? He’s keen to take a year out, just being an artist. “I’d love to be in a room with lots of paper,” he said.
He says he has had several artistic commissions from individuals and organisations. And he is hoping to do more short films – although probably not stop frame animation of his pictures, because they are so time intensive.
In the meantime his pictures touch a lot of people in this country and far beyond.
And that’s probably worth more than an Aston Martin. Just about…