Out Of That Corner - Two New Drawings

I continue to work at coloring (staining) my Arches watercolor paper. Some of them are amazing, but I am drawing 'architecturally' on top of them. Something about the 'rational' holding back the chaos. The tower is based on the cubing of the first thirteen positive integers, what is more rational than that?

Tower of Cubes - Arches Watercolor Paper, India Ink, Acrylic Paint - 40 x 22 inches

Untitled - Arches Watercolor Paper, India Ink, Acrylic Paint - 40 x 22 inches

Drew Myself Into a Corner

Michael McGuire - Untitled - Acrylic Paint on India Ink on Watercolor Paper - 40 x 36 inches

I've been intensely involved in 'staining' Arches watercolor paper with India Ink this week, and the results are intriguing, if not a bit disconcerting. One thought is to draw over these abstractions with something very formal,  even architectural - I've drawn a tower or two. The dialogue between the hard edged and the abstract could be a metaphor for so many things in our world.  On the other hand the papers themselves are so sexy in their tones and level of distress they might stand alone. I'm torn between my need to be a minimalist and the guilt I feel when things are not complex enough.

New/Old Drawing - 'Winter City'

I had fun with this one. The start of the drawing had been sitting in the drawer for a couple months, half finished - white acrylic buildings on a hand-washed background of diluted India Ink. My thought at the time was to continue drawing buildings at a smaller scale into the background, but I ran out of momentum. Recently I've been wanting to experiment with grids, or lines of acrylic paint on hand colored watercolor paper, and this unfinished drawing was the perfect opportunity to do so. I worked on a large sheet of paper, left over from a larger roll of Arches watercolor paper, and I tore it down after the drawing was completed. The deckled edge is very much in evidence. I'm happy with the way it came out, the traces of the under-wash still show - I already have a couple of directions that must be explored. I'm calling it 'Winter City' because it reminds me of the way Lake Michigan looked this past winter, covered in sheets of ice.

Winter City - Acrylic Paint, India Ink, Arches Watercolor Paper - 40x22 inches