Randall Rosenthal started out with three pieces of white pine and turned them into something we all might like to have. A big box of money! He said that he started by gluing the three pieces of pine together. He had the vision and as you can see, he has the skills. He is a pretty talented guy. He calls this “Old Money”.
Here is the start of it.
Some patience was probably needed while waiting for the glue to dry.
In the early stages, it sure didn’t look like much.
He said that his tools were so sharp, he didn’t even notice he had cut himself until he saw the blood.
There is no way I would have guessed at this point what the end result would be.
Here it is finally starting to take shape.
And now you can really see the wood starting to look like a cardboard box.
He said he never does any preliminary drawings for his art. He likes it to be random.
Starting to come together.
Here it is, almost ready for color to be added. Do you notice the depth of the box? Pretty amazing considering it is wood.
Here a little color is added.
When asked how he does the color his reply was, “First I mix a lot of the background color so I can tune up the painting every step of the way. I draw it on in pencil and then use a “Micron” brand felt tip pen with archival ink. then I use the finest brush I can find with carbon black acrylic. Then I do the color. The 50’s have far more color and present a greater challenge. I finish with washes of carbon black. The green sides (which you will see in a bit) are done entirely with brushes as there is no pen I’ve found yet that’s close to the right color and thin enough to be useful. Unlike carving I can keep adding paint forever until I’m satisfied.”
One of the greatest challenges was getting the cardboard right.
There is no such thing as “cardboard” color paint so he had to be creative.
It’s a good thing that being creative is something he is good at.
Not just good, but great!
It is amazing that this is wood.
He was commissioned to do another one of these right after he finished this one.
A Japanese TV station went to his house and recreated “old money”.
His wife took this picture to show him working and what his work space is like. He said that he color coded his tools and it saves him a lot of time.
Randall graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in the late 1960s. He went on to open his first exhibition of surrealist paintings, a direction he pursued in to the late 80s. After that he shifted his focus to architectural design. He then started creating the realist sculptures he creates today. He has done a wide variety of wood sculptures, maps, charts, comic books, newspapers, and sketch books that are a few of the items he has recreated out of wood.