Michael McGuire Art

I worked on the water and the foreground bank today. I'm going to leave it for a few days now to dry a little so that I can work wet-on-dry to do highlights on the water and a few other minor adjustments. Probably about another hour's work left on this one. Here it is as of now:-

Warning - there is some nudity ahead, albeit very tasteful. If you are likely to be offended please wait until my next landscape post.

I heard that life drawing/painting is a great way to sharpen your drawing skills and acquire greater speed. so that is why I took the plunge and joined a local art group that paints weekly in my home town. Believe me, I am way out of my confort zone here, having never done any figure drawing before and done very little pencil work either since I was a teenager (some time ago unfortunately!).

My objective, in time is to be able to produce figure paintings over a 45-60 minute period of comparible quality to my plein airs. At the moment, I'm concentrating on drawing only, using graphite pencils. Here are two from last night, the first about twenty minutes and the second about 45 minutes.

I started this one on Monday, but the sun disappeared after about 15 minutes. This is Ireland, so I had to wait until this morning for the sun to come out again! As it so happened, it was a fabulous morning, with temps up to about 8C/46F. This is an abandoned stone quarry near my home and it is a great place to paint plein air. I was intrigued here by what the strong backlight did to the local colour of rocks and trees in shadow, resulting in much more warmth than one might expect.



Here is a reference photo I took last Monday. It was much fresher and breezier today.

This is based on a plein air sketch and some photos from April 07. I was drawn to the scene by the strong value and chromatic contrasts. This is an unusually small studio painting for me (12" x 10"), but I feel the small format suits the subject matter. Here is one of my reference photos:-

 


Here is my initial block-in.




And here it is after about another hour's work:-




Since the forecast is fairly good, I'll probably concentrate on plein air work for the next few days and finish this one on Monday or Tuesday.

I came across this place last summer and never got around to painting it. During summer it was possible to drive all the way there. Today, because the ground was so wet, I had to walk about a half mile. Then when I had set up, I noticed everything (easel, bag and me!) was slowly sinking. Nevertheless, I persisted, even though I returned home with mud up to my ankles! Cloudy day again, but at least the light was consistent. I was drawn to the scene initially by the red roofs in the middle-distance, but the ruts/puddles in the foreground offered great potential to create a strong 3D effect. Here is my plein air (approx two hours work).



And a reference photo:-

Well, not quite the first of '09! My first was on a very cold morning about a week ago and it was a total dud! I usually paint PA without mediums and just with a knife, but found the paint had stiffened considerably in the cold making it almost unworkable. So today, for the first time, I brought some medium and brushes as well as my favourite knife. I have to say that despite difficult lighting conditions, I found it much easier, so I think I'll use both brush and knife in future. It was also much milder (about 7C/45F) which helped.

It was totally overcast when I started but then the sun came out so I started a different scene. But then after about 15 minutes it clouded over again so I returned to the original and finished it. I'll have to wait until the next sunny morning to finish the second one. Plein air work can really try your patience in Ireland!

Here is the finished painting and a couple of reference photos. I was attracted to the scene by the recession of the distant landmass, but particularly by the red cast in the dirt track, which comes from the colour of the exposed rock in a disused adjacent quarry. I always look for some bright colour on a dull day, and this seemed to lift the scene here. I also made the distant hills slightly larger than IRL just to add some interest to the horizon.

I finished the painting this morning. Fairly pleased with how it turned out.



A couple of details to show texture:-

I did a lot of work on the sea today and it is now close to finished. I also did a little work on the foreground grassy area. I still need to more work on the sky, paint the lighthouse and do some overall refinement. Probably another 3-4 hours work. Should finish it tomorrow. Here is the painting now:-

I did a little further work on the painting this morning. I'm reasonably happy at this stage that it will work compositionally. I'm going to leave it for a couple of days and finish it on Monday or Tuesday. Here is the painting as it is now.

I started this one today (14" x 18") based on some photos I took in Ballycotton on the South Coast of Ireland last spring. Here is my initial block-in and reference photo. I repositioned the lighthouse more to the right for compositional reasons.

I wasn't entirely happy with sky in this, since it had gotten a little cooler than I wanted. I added some very pale greens to warm up the blue areas a little and adjusted the horizon accordingly. I also added a little more definition to the nearest part of the beach and added a little more cadmium orange and cadmium red to the wild flowers, especially in the nearest areas. This is definitely the final version.




Here are a couple details of the sky which, although darker, give a better idea of the colour variation:-

I finished the painting yesterday. I worked mostly on the sky to add a bit of interest to an otherwise bland area of the painting.



Here's a detail of the sky which shows the colour variation within it a little bettter:-