Four New Drawings For A Dreary Fall Day

Michael McGuire - Color Dot Study - Block Printing Ink on Arches Watercolor Paper - 40x26 inches

Michael McGuire - Color Square Study - Block Printing Ink on Arches Watercolor Paper - 40x26 inches

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

Lastly an unfinished drawing that I began in late spring. A hand drawing record of my swimming yardage this summer. I was surprisingly  faithful about recording the yardage each day, I found it motivating to keep track and I have not put in this much yardage in months. The crosshatching is time consuming and I fell behind immediately. I hope to finish it at some point but I do like it in incomplete state.

Michael McGuire - Summer 2018 Swimming Yardage - Technical Pen on Arches Watercolor Paper - 40x26 inches

Framed 'Lake' Watercolors

I have watercolors at the Montrose yacht club this summer but I'm not sure we will be holding a reception there anytime soon. In the meantime I have hung the nine

framed 'Lake' watercolors I have on hand here in the gallery on the wall. They look great together.

Michael McGuire - Nine 'Lake' Watercolors in Frames - 20 x 8 x 1.5 inches each

Detail

More Color

A Paul Klee homage

Block Printing Ink on Arches Watercolor Paper - 40 x 26 inches

The first drawing with the long rectangular rubber stamp. Primarily a color theory exploration.

Block Printing Ink on Arches Watercolor Paper - 40 x 26 inches

Color mixing one step at a time. I prefer this drawing in a horizontal orientation.

Block Printing Ink on Arches Watercolor Paper - 26 x 40 inches

The work table where colors are mixed. Note the rubber stamp in the upper right hand corner.

And I have spray painting a bit. An extension of the signs I made last month. Playing with color and letting it fly. Spray paint on cardboard.

And finally, spray painting into a striped piece.

Michael McGuire - Acrylic Paint Pen, Acrylic Spray Paint on Panel - 30 x 24 inches

Have I Posted These?

Michael McGuire - Untitled Mono-Print - 40x26 inches

Detail

Michael McGuire - 2 Untitled Mono-Prints - 40x26 inches each

Michael McGuire - 2 Untitled 'City' Drawings - 40x26 inches each

Michael McGuire - Untitled - Acrylic Paint on Panel - 30 x 40 inches

New Work In Color

This morning I finished a large color 'stamp' piece. I'm still taking it in - a lot of color in one piece for me. But color is appearing a much of my work this January. Maybe it is the time of year and a rebellion against the cold gray weather. It certainly stems from my experiments this past fall with the rubber stamps and color. I reexamining a few of the things I learned regarding color relationships.

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Detail

Last week I spent much of my time making signs for the Chicago Women's March. It was an amazing event, I so glad I attended. Michelle and Corinne carried a large cardboard sign I made from the boxes my framer gives me. And I also spray painted a series of smaller color stencil pieces that we handed out at the march. There are a few left in the gallery and I may make a few more.

New Year, New Work

Bitter cold here in Chicago for the first week of January 2018. What else is there to do but work? The studio is cool but workable, and I have been treating myself to movies and the occasional cocktail with friends. But I have gotten some work done too.

Michael McGuire- Indigo Overlapping Grids 3 - Watercolor, Acrylic Paint, Arches Paper - 40x26 inches

Michael McGuire- Tinker Toy Grid 3 - Acrylic Paint, Arches Paper - 40x26 inches

Michael McGuire- Untitled - India Ink, Acrylic Paint, Arches Paper - 40x26 inches

Michael McGuire- Untitled - India Ink, Acrylic Paint, Arches Paper - 40x26 inches

Michael McGuire- Untitled Collage - India Ink, Archival Glue, Arches Paper - 30x22 inches

Michael McGuire- 3 Studies - Acrylic Paint, Arches Paper - 9x12 inches each

A Pair?

Every once in awhile I have a reason to recreate a drawing. I have a 'soft' hold on an Indigo Lake drawing so I thought I'd make another. No two drawings are exactly the same and I often intervene to make them even less similar. In this case the second sheet of indigo stained watercolor paper (Arches Natural White Watercolor Paper - 25-3/4" x 40", Cold Press) was already dyed. But these dyed sheets are never the same and to change it up further I decided to reverse the image. To make my life easier I used new Molotow acrylic paint pens rather than using the old ones I have on hand from previous projects. I did approximately use measurements from the earlier drawing to gauge where things should fall but I did not anticipate the two being quite so similar and symmetrical. Fun as a pair but they will not remain so, I'm taking one to the framer today.

Michael McGuire - 2 Indigo Lake Drawings - Watercolor, Acrylic Paint on Arches Watercolor Paper - 40 x 26 inches each

Pairs

I had a client this week that wanted to see a few drawings that might work as pairs. I thought I'd share the photos I sent to her. The two 'Indigo' pieces are new this week. All drawings are 40 x 26 inches. 

Monoprints

I have been working on a series of monoprints that I have been making by using a couple very simple rubber stamps. I started by using a triangular shaped stamp and them moved on to the circular one this week. The prints are fun and geometric and I plan to continue the series in color eventually.

This morning I was into the studio early and jumped right into the prints when it occurred to me to make a mono-print off the plastic sheath that I was using as a pad for inking the stamps. I saw similarities to some of the Rothko Studies I had made earlier in the summer and began inking different areas in gray tones. I also varied the amount of printing ink I would use in areas and it was applied with a brayer, hence the somewhat rectangular arrangements. I ran through all 15 sheets of 16 x 12 inches hot press Arches Watercolor paper that I had on hand and some of the results are intriguing.

There was a dimple in the surface on my drawing table that the plastic surface I was using as my inking area soon began to show. A small dot appeared in many of the prints. Oddly enough if you read the prints as landscapes, the dimple becomes a mark that just might represent the moon in the upcoming solar eclipse tomorrow.Seems like a nice sort of synchronicity.

Michael McGuire - Untitled Monoprint - Printing Ink on Arches Watercolor Paper - 16 x 12 inches

Michael McGuire - Untitled Monoprint - Printing Ink on Arches Watercolor Paper - 16 x 12 inches

Michael McGuire - Various Monoprints - 16 x 12 inches each

Michael McGuire - Untitled Monoprint - Printing Ink on Arches - 40 x 26 inches

Michael McGuire - Untitled Monoprint - Printing Ink on Arches - 40 x 26 inches

And a few new framed drawings just back from Wall to Wall Framing.

Recent Color Studies

Color is definitely in my head this spring. Some people say it is a reaction to the Trump era. I like to thing I'm working on adding another skill set. Color is hard,and I am not a natural, but I have learned a few things. Not sure where I am going with this impulse but small studies seem like a good place to figure it out.

I just finished a commission of large 'City' drawings that involved a bit of cautious color. These drawings will be heading to Sao Paulo and the imagery seems appropriate to a city of that size. 

Michael McGuire - 4 'City' Drawings - Acrylic Paint on Paper - 40 x 26 inches each

These drawings required me to look at both the acrylic paint and the paint pens I had on-hand and I ended up making a series of samplers that looked something like these. I had more earlier in the month but I have been giving them away as gifts. They are small and definitely have the feel of a study. My immediate impulse are the psychedelic color combinations. I was all those early rock posters on which I was raised. I think too that is has something to do with challenging my eyesight which becomes weaker every year.

Directly from these came a series of small city studies. Each of these are sized at 8.5 x 5.5 inches.

 

I got a little political on the last study.

On to something larger this weekend.

Monoprints

I enjoyed making the 'Obama' block print last winter and have been wanting to play with the technique a bit more. I purchased a five small linoleum blocks to experiment with and opted not to cut into them - I printed the blocks as they came from store. In the later monoprints I cut one block down to a slightly narrower size to shift the grid. Not sure what I'm after here but these fall into the category of drawings where I do not do any traditional drawing. The texture is evocative and I was seeing film negatives a few.  Some of them have dimensions etc. because I sent images out to a few interested parties.