Michael Burns Art

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 2 Date: 05/02/2017 Subject: Yellowwood Lake Brown County Indiana Medium: Oil on Paper Link to prior sessions:  Session 1. End of Session 2 Photo In my own opinion, correct values are one of the fundamentals that are lacking in my paintings, so in session 2, I worked to achieve the right shift in values. I painted another layer of blue sky and added more white and shadows to the clouds. Also, I worked on reflections in the water and continued to refine the trees and grass. The paper is relatively smooth, so the paint glides nicely over the paper. As I mentioned before, I tend to paint in thin layers building up the painting over time. I like how you can spread the paint out over the paper, resulting in a very smooth painting. Even with the gesso board, you have to be careful and smooth out any brush strokes to achieve a smooth look., This effect seems a little easier on paper. So far, the one thing that appears to be diffe

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 4 Date: 05/06/2017 Subject: Pileated Woodpecker Medium: Acrylic on Paper In this session, I spent time refining the woodpecker by darkening the red tuft, shortened the beak, and painting the feathers. On the tree, I changed the hole and added details to the bark of the tree. Now that I am getting several layers of paint on the paper, I noticed a couple of things.  If you add too much water, the paint will bead up and pool on the paper like rain on a waxed car. It makes sense because of acrylic, not water being soluble like watercolors. I think it might be helpful to try a glazing medium or flow improver instead of straight water. I still want to be able to blend the paint similar to oils. Maybe in the next painting, I will get some of the medium to see if it helps aid in the blending. When I used acrylics a long time ago, I don't remember the paint drying so fast. I am sure it is because I am painting in much thinner l

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 5 Date: 05/06/2017 Subject: Pileated Woodpecker Medium: Acrylic on Paper Links to Prior Sessions:  Session 1 - 3 ,  Session 4 I spent all of the time in painting session 5, working on the leaves of the tree. Like the previous painting session, I had trouble getting any of the paint to blend. So I am having trouble getting the darks and highlights in the leaves as I can in Oil.  I tried dry brushing, adding retarder along with various amounts of water to achieve the effect I wanted. Still, it did not work to my satisfaction. Because of the blending issue, I found myself painting the same leaves multiple times and ending this session not satisfied with the way the leaves look. I still did not get out to get any medium that I hope would help the blending issue. I did not have any problem with the paint beading up, so not sure what caused it in session 4. All of the issues I am having seem to be related to the drying time of A

Expanding My Artistic Horizons Paint for yourself, not for juried shows Lately, I noticed that painting is more like work than fun, and I don't look forward to painting. Not sure if this is the only reason, but a few years ago, I set a goal for myself to get my work juried into some major art shows here in Indiana. Since then, it seems I only paint to achieve those goals putting off the things I want to do as an artist. I am stuck on trying to create the perfect landscape painting with the ideal composition and subject matter.  This quest has led to some lousy painting behavior. While I am painting, I am never satisfied with the results and continually change my composition. This has led to so much frustration that I never seem to finish a painting. I get so tired of painting the same picture  I just stop and put it aside and may not pick up a brush for months.  As I painted, I would think to myself  I really would like to try watercolors, spend time sketching, or spend time pa

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 1 Date: 04/30/2017 Subject: Yellowwood Lake Medium: Oil on Paper Original Photo I came across an oil on paper I had started a few years ago at Yellowwood Lake in Brown County, Indiana. I had bought a pad of 9 x 12 Canson 136 lb Canva-Paper ready for Oil thinking I would use the paper for quick field studies instead of canvas. After a few attempts, I quickly lost interest in using paper for Oils. Initially, I did not think it would be much different than canvas, but the paper has its own characteristics. The paper comes prepped for oil painting, but the paint soaks into the paper to quick to manipulate the paint. As part of my effort to expand my artistic horizons and explore new mediums and techniques, I decided to finish the painting and give the paper a second chance. Original Unfinished Painting The Picture titled "Original Unfinished Painting" was my first attempt a couple of years ago at using

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 1 thru 3 Date: 04/29/2017 Subject: Pileated Woodpecker Session 1 thru 3 Medium: Acrylic on Paper As part of my "Expanding Artistic Horizons" series, I decided to paint a Pileated Woodpecker in Acrylic. I have some experience with acrylic because when I first started, I painted for a few years with acrylic then moved to Oil. Because I wanted to use acrylic in more of a watercolor form, I choose to paint on paper. I am using "Fluid" cold-pressed 140 lb. Acid-free watercolor paper. A variety of Acrylic brands Golden, Winsor Newton, and Liquitex paints. I will continue to update this post as I complete a painting session. Painting Session 1 thru 3 - 04/29/2017 Session 1 thru 3 I had not decided to create this post until today, so the painting is actually a result of the first three sessions.  In session one,  I used a combination of photos to create the drawing, which I drew in pencil directly on th