I'm Tempted To Call This Series 'Elaborate Cages'

Michael McGuire - Girder And Panel 22 - India Ink on Arches - 40 x 26 inches

Michael McGuire - Girder And Panel 23, 24 - India Ink on Arches - 40 x 26 inches

Michael McGuire - Untitled - Acrylic Paint on Panel - 12 x 12 inches

Detail

'Elaborate Cages' seems an apt title for this latest group of work given the political box we find ourselves in at this time. How did we get here? We went from the relative stability of the Obama years to utter chaos. The term cages could also refer to emotional or personal cages we have built for ourselves. Which ever definition you lean towards, these cages may be beautiful, they may give a sense of freedom and direction, but we are trapped and we have constructed them ourselves.

New Drawing

I'm posting a photo of this brand new drawing in order that I will be able to look at it online over the next couple days. I have been wanting to make a somewhat more complex 'Girder and Panel' drawing for awhile now.  I had completed the pencil under-drawing last spring and stashed it away in a drawer. I had the ink out today and pushed through this drawing in addition to a smaller commissioned one. Now I will have quick access to this image on various online platforms to view and contemplate when I get the impulse. I like to think about my work in this way: Out of the studio, when I get the urge, wherever I happen to be. I am going to look at it on my phone right now!

Michael McGuire - Untitled - Acrylic Paint on Arches Watercolor Paper - 40''x26''

The 'Overlapping Grids' Series Continues

Three new drawings in the what I am now calling 'Overlapping Grids' series. All drawings are on Arches watercolor paper sized at 40 x 26 inches. Media is: acrylic paint and pencil.

Michael McGuire - Overlapping Grids #9

Michael McGuire - Overlapping Grids #10

Michael McGuire - Overlapping Grids #7

And then three photos I made the other day on a foggy bike ride up to the gallery. I think they relate to the drawings.

Girder and Panel #16

A new drawing, a reworking of an older idea, but as I am making this drawing I am reminded of a toy I had as a young boy. It was called 'Kenner, Girder and Panel Building Set'. It is clear from the illustrations how this building set worked. The manipulations were not particularly difficult but the permutations were endless. It is easy to imaging the geometry inherent to this toy influenced my interest in architectural drawing and the drawings I make to this day.

Some Old Work That Relates To New Work

I had a request for an old drawing that I knew was stored away safely somewhere. As I was digging through my 'archives', really just cardboard boxes of old drawings, I came across these four vintage drawings that very much related to the drawings I'm currently working on. The materials are different, India ink versus acrylic paint pen, but the geometry is the same. Both series are an exploration of perspective drawing, and a specific type of perspective drawing called isometric projection. Weird alignments occur in this type of drawing, and yet there is a sense of the 3D in them. Below are the four drawing from 2006, a detail from that series, and then a drawing finished this past week.

Michael McGuire - 4 Untitled Drawings - 2006 - India Ink on Bristol Paper - 32 x 40 inches each

Detail

3DX#6 - India Ink, Acrylic Paint Pen, Arches Watercolor Paper - 26 x 40 inches

Some Old Drawings....

....Unearthed as I continue to resettle my apartment after new windows and a paint job. Found them all in a rather distressed cardboard box - many circa 2008/2009. Quickly photographed on the floor of the studio, note the yardstick for scale.

Close Encounters With A New Drawing

Untitled - Windson Newton Watercolor, Acrylic Paint Pen, Arches Watercolor Paper - 26" x 40 "

This new drawing has been knocking around the studio for a few weeks. Many people seem to like it and ask about it's precedents, which are many. Architectural drawing, and specifically perspective drawing figures into its making. The slight skewed grid was created using an old standby for perspective drawing - by definition the diagonal lines connecting the nodes should all 'vanish' to one point on a distant horizon. I use this rule to help me establish a simple grid on the paper. 

Additionally a few years ago I made a series of drawings using watercolor paint and rubbing alcohol, which when applied on top of the freshly wet watercolor, expands and resists the color. Which to me looked very much like galaxies and stars. 

http://heartsandtrees.blogspot.com/2008/08/watercolor-techniques-6-texture-with.html

But quite frankly, the biggest influence of all, certainly the one that reaches back the furthest for me, would be the movie 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind', the Steven Spielberg movie from 1977. I know I sat though it twice the first time I saw it. But what very much impressed me about the movie at the time was the simple and elegant way the makers used light to create the illusion of something real and three dimensional. The early scenes of the initial encounters with the smaller UFOs were thrilling for me and I like to occasionally think of a drawing like this as an alien space craft or at least the stars aligning in some unreal way. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MW3KJUa8FQ

New Show, New Work

My concept for the show with Ted Harris that opens this coming Friday at Las Manos Gallery is various works on Arches 26 x 40 inch watercolor paper. As you might know if you have check in on this blog recently I have been dying, staining and/or adding watercolor washes to the paper for a few weeks now. On top of that I have been drawing, with acrylic paint pens, imagery derived from my architectural drawing past. I hope to have at least a dozen of these drawings and although they will not be framed, I'm going to make some sort of installation out of them on the plywood walls.

Untitled (Grid on Grid 1) - Watercolor, Acrylic Paint, Watercolor Paper - 26 x 40 inches

The opening reception is on Friday August 22, 2014 at Las Manos Gallery, 1515 W. Foster Ave in Chicago. The party will run from 7 until 10 pm. It should be a good one!

Ted Harris has been hard at work in his studio creating lamps to fit the scale and sensibility of Las Manos.

Nicole Hollander is creating what I can only call dioramas with fish!

Kathryn Trumbull Fimreite will be showing a beautiful DVD about the frustrations of creative endeavors.

Michelle Peterson Albandoz promises on new large 'circular' piece, and Tricia Rubolz is always hard at work.

My Work In The Ralph Lauren Fall Showrooms

Ralph Lauren will be using two drawing of mine in their Home Showrooms this fall. They own the original drawings but for this particular situation we will be creating oversized prints from the drawings and placing them in eleven of their stores in the US and London. I'm so happy to be associated with RL, they have been nothing but kind to me, and they see my work in ways that are revealing even to myself. Unfortunately, Chicago will not be one of the store featuring my work, not all stores have the high ceilings a ample space required to house this installation. My friends at Ralph Lauren were kind enough to send me a few photos as previews and I'm posting a four here.  The showrooms don't go up until mid-August and will be in place through January. The store where the showrooms will be in place: New York (Madison Ave.), London (New Bond Street), London (Bromton Cross), Denver, Atlanta, Chevy Chase, Troy, Greenwich, Palo Alto, Manhasset, Phoenix.

Drawings, New and Old, on the Gallery Wall

I'm settling into using the Las Manos Gallery as my studio space and I have managed to make a few pieces in the last week. There has been a surprising amount of traffic through the gallery, many of my friends and even a few walk-ins - distractions abound. But it is working on many levels, and I'm encouraged by the experience thus far. Pictured is one wall in the gallery this morning, with some new work, some old work and two pieces reconfigured.

  Left to right:
1. An old grid drawing cut apart and quickly reassembled. Looks like a figure from a petroglyph, maybe an ancient alien.

2. An old cardboard 'tapestry' piece. Recycled card board, India Ink washes, staples. There is a 'face' constructed within the piece, it is not immediately apparent in person but shows up well in photographs.

3. New India Ink Piece. Untrimmed top and bottom but roughly 22 x 58 inches.
4. Large India Ink Drawing. 45 x 70 inches when trimmed top and bottom.
5. Painted 12 x 12 inch panels. Acrylic paint pens. There are 7 panels pictured here and they can and have been arrange in many different configurations. Design your own contemporary painting!

6. New Cardboard and India Ink Drawing, 40 x 60 inches. I'm very attracted to the color of the cardboard. And it like the ubiquitous and mundane position in our culture.

A Problem of Orientation

Weird week work-wise. I'm a little bit in between projects, but it is important to me to keep working. I have a few strategies to move forward when I'm a little stalled, and one of those is to use materials I have on hand.  I went a little mad for acrylic paint markers last winter. In a binge of buying I accumulated at least 30 in various widths and colors. The colors were neutrals, white, gray, black, silver, with one hot pink and one fluorescent green. Well this week I dug them out of storage and dove in. Pictured are two piece I made this week using the white acrylic paint markers on archival gray mat board. My problem with orientation is that I cannot quite decide which way is up; they both look interesting both directions. That is not to say they convey the same meaning both orientations, something as basic as is one looking up or down at something are very different experiences. Is that the top of a building or the base? The two images on the bottom flipped from the original orientations.

Acrylic Paint on Archival Mat Board - 40 x 32 inches

Acrylic Paint on Archival Mat Board - 40 x 32 inches

New Box Drawing

A couple new developments with my 'Box' drawings recently. I've been making them in white paint on dark back grounds. And I have found new paint based pens. These pens are popular with the graffiti crowd and here in the Chicago area are sold in art supply stores behind lock and key. But they are filled with acrylic paint, come in an array of colors and are relatively reliable when it comes to line width and application of paint. They are not with out a few problems, and they continue to occasionally challenge my perfectionist instincts, but I find the results refreshing. Below is a box drawing made with my new tool. It reinvigorates an old idea for me and I'm intrigued by the results. On to colored pens or maybe metallic?

Variation on My Grid Drawings

I've been in the mood to make a few more grid-like drawings, (and it is always good to have a few on hand), but I wanted to change them up a bit. In architecture school, one method of perspective drawing was to make an axonometric drawing, where diverging lines remain parallel to each other. There are a number of types of axonometric projection, (see the chart below, thank you Wikipedia), and this type where the angles are at a 120 degree pitch is specifically called an isometric projection. I think of these drawings as abstract, (as well as minimal and optical), but it could be a building too. This drawing is India Ink on Bristol Paper, and its' dimensions are 30 x 40 inches.

Reception At Scout October 2012

The reception for the Scout show was Friday night. Great party, great people. The evening flew by in a whirlwind of friends, art, music and a really good time. Thanks to Wil Vodak for making this panorama with his cell phone.!?

Two New Box Drawings

Amidst the inhibiting heat and my being occupied with a couple commissions, I felt the need to change it up a bit media-wise for an afternoon this week. I've been wanting to revisit the idea of the box drawn with India Ink for awhile now and with the sale last week of one of my few remaining boxes from the older series, this Monday seemed like a good day to pursue that impulse. These two drawing were the result. Both are India Ink on watercolor paper. Approximately 28 x 40 inches.

Whats On My Living Room Wall

It has been a very busy week, relatives in town, crazy heat, and much work. So in the mean time here is a photo of what is on my living room wall. Can you spot; an old B+W photo from college, 2 new collages utilizing recycled cardboard from cereal boxes, vintage 70's audio speakers, small constellation watercolor, two recent acquisitions from Scout (cool black leather chair, metal file storage things), Jeff Janson painting, 'Law and Order' marathon......