Sean McGowan

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Inspired by Dylan Thomas.

Like the poem, it depicts the struggle of life against death – light against darkness – and, in this case, I do it visually. The picture doesn’t show a couple small hands near the bottom of his legs coming out of the blackness.

It is framed and ready to hang either vertically OR horizontally. Looks great both ways.

HOW DID I MAKE IT?

Funny you should ask. First I drew a few sketches. This was the first one and grabbed me the most:

Then I drew (with lots of erasing) a large format version on some railroad board with the idea of making a stencil. I focused mostly on getting the structure, or the form, correct:

Then I cut out only the part where the light would hit the figure, leaving the rest to the dark recesses of the undefined blackness of the imagination. Looks weird here, in reverse, with the figure in brown and a white easel behind it:

And then the easy part: spraying it! An old artist’s trick is to tape around the edges so when done you can untape to see a beautiful, perfectly framed piece of art when you’re done. Very satisfying.

That’s it!