The Light Box

Strangely perhaps, I've never owned a light box before. Light boxes are most useful for transferring rough sketches to another sheet of paper to create a basis for a more finished artwork without having to eradicate the original piece, and for all kinds of operations where tracing of some kind is necessary. This box we made is quite large, being based around a sheet of plexiglass 36" long by 24" wide. The interior is lit by six LED bulbs (equivalent of 60w output each, warm light). I haven't used it in a real-world situation yet, but it looks like it's going to be useful. Huge thanks to my pal Jim Stevenson, without whose skills and efforts this would not have been possible. I did some of the easy work, Jim did all the rest.

I put a drawing on top of the lightbox for the first photo & turned it on, to give an idea of how it looks. The 1" holes in the ends are for ventilation, though the LED bulbs give off very little heat (the holes also reduce the weight of the box a little).

Light box with drawing on top

Illuminated light box

Light box in the studio

Day of Wrath and Renewal

The title of this drawing is a reference to John Martin's "Great Day of His Wrath", an apocalyptic vision, but here tempered with a sense of rebirth. From an ongoing series of images depicting the world.

Day of Wrath and Renewal, 2015, brush & ink on paper, 28.5" x 22.5"

Destroyer & Creator of Worlds

A couple of years ago, I made a drawing entitled "Destroyer of Worlds" (a reference to the Oppenheimer quote). Today, to balance things out,  I created the antidote, "Creator of Worlds".

Creator of Worlds, 2015, brush pen on paper, 28.5" x 22.5"

Destroyer of Worlds, 2013, brush & ink on paper, 24" x 19"

The Survivors

This is the largest piece I've done in quite a while...it relates to other series I've done, such as the Black Paintings (1999-2000), the Holocaust Series (2005), and of course The War Room (2003-2004). It's good to be working on a large scale again...

The Survivors, 2015, acrylic on unstretched canvas, 66" x 72" approx.

The Siren and Her Song

Here is another monochrome painting on cardboard. The sepia color of the cardboard gives a nice warm middle tone, so I leave parts of the surface bare or covered with a light wash of paint.

The Siren and Her Song, 2015, acrylic on cardboard, 48" x 36".