Michael Burns Art

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 6 and Final Date: 07/03/2017 Subject: Yellowwood Lake, Brown County Indiana Medium: Oil on Paper Link to painting sessions:  Session 1.  ,  Session 2.    Session 3 .  Session 4 ,  Session 5 This was the final painting session for the Yellowwood Lake painting on paper. During this session, I painted the background trees and water lighter to make them recede further into the background. I also added highlights to the foreground tree and weeds. My medium of choice is oil, but as part of  Expand My Artistic Horizons , I wanted to try something different. So choose to use paper as the support. In Session 1 Introduction, I mentioned I had started this painting several years ago, thinking I could use paper for field studies. But quickly lost interest in using paper due to issues I had when trying to paint on paper. Now that I finished the painting and experienced the differences between paper and canvas, I may need to try paper

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 7, Final Session Date: 06/29/2017 Subject: Pileated Woodpecker Medium: Acrylic on Paper Links to Prior Sessions:  Session 1 -  3 ,  Session 4 ,  Session 5 ,  Session 6 During this session, I finalized the details of the woodpecker and added details to the leaves. I am considering this painting complete. The whole exercise was to try something new and to  Expand My Artistic Horizons . Also, to explore a new medium or technique and try not to obsess over the outcome. Years ago, I did paint some with acrylic on canvas but never on paper.  So I thought it would be fun to try. I originally started out thinking I would use acrylic more watered down like watercolors and try to achieve a similar effect.  But I ended up just using the opaque properties of acrylic. Maybe later, I will paint with acrylic to mimic watercolor. Below are observations of my painting with acrylic on paper. I am not experienced at using Acrylic, so p

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 5 Date: 06/23/2017 Subject: Yellowwood Lake, Brown County Indiana Medium: Oil on Paper Link to painting sessions:  Session 1.  ,  Session 2.    Session 3 .  Session 4 Yellowwood Lake End of Session 4 Getting close to being done with this painting, one more session should be sufficient. Spent the day adding in the lighter values and some highlights on the middle and foreground trees. I also add in some details in the water to hopefully give the water a little more movement. Probably will not add any more because I want the lake to look calm but not completely still. Added in more grass and detail in the foreground still, have some minor work in that area before it is finished. The more I work with oil on paper, the more it seems to behave similarly to smooth gessoed panels. I also like the look I can achieve with the paint. I think I need to change the farthest trees in the background. The trees in session 4 seemed to

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Date: 06/19/2017 Subject: T. C. Steele Studio Barn Medium: Watercolor  View of  T.C. Steele Studio Barn Today was in the mid-'70s, which made it a perfect day to go to Nashville, Indiana. We stopped at the Brown County Art Gallery to view the 39th Annual Indiana Heritage Arts Exhibition and Sale. There was a good variety of work by well-known Indiana artists and was well worth the stop. Afterward, we drove out to the  T. C. Steele State Historic Site  to spend the afternoon. The site is closed on Monday, so you cannot go on the tour but can walk around the grounds.  I decided to take my  Watercolor Sketch Kit  as part of the Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series . Looking for a subject to sketch and paint, I settled on a view from the porch of the T. C. Steele studio barn. The wind was blowing enough to cool the air and make you think about why Selma came up with the name "House of the Singing Winds." I must say sittin

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 6 Date: 06/17/2017 Subject: Pileated Woodpecker Medium: Acrylic on Paper Links to Prior Sessions:  Session 1 -  3 ,  Session 4 ,  Session 5 I spent Session 6, repeating what I did in Session 5. I continued to spend almost all of my time working on the leaves, trying to achieve some level of realism.  But continue to run into the same issues, such as the ability to blend the paint and drying time. I am sure that it is my inexperience painting in acrylic and not knowing some of the methods or techniques used to achieve the results I am looking for. I did read that the glazing medium could be used to blend acrylic paint. Before I start another painting, I want to get some of the medium to see if it helps solve the problem. I am not sure if the medium and paint will behave the same on paper as it does on canvas. Maybe I will do a test on different surfaces to see how the medium will work before starting another painting. I did p

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 4 Date: 06/07/2017 Subject: Yellowwood Lake, Brown County Indiana Medium: Oil on Paper Link to painting sessions:  Session 1.  ,  Session 2.    Session 3 . I spent this session working on the details of both the foreground and background trees.  Working mainly with Mars Black, Sap Green, Naples Yellow, Golden Ochre for the greens. I tried to obtain enough shift in values to achieve some depth in the painting. I don't think I am there yet, so I will continue to work on this in the next session. Looking at the composition, I now see several areas I wish were different. But I am resisting the voice in my head telling me to make the changes. As I wrote in Expanding My Artistic Horizons , changes are the very reason I am doing this series and have prevented me in the past from finishing paintings. I usually mix my own oil painting medium but chose to use Liquin for the first time. I like its ability to create smooth strokes o

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Assembling a Watercolor Field Sketch Kit My Water Color Sketch Book Lap Desk Sketch Setup During the fall of 2016, I started looking at different blogs and websites of artists who watercolor sketch. I was amazed by how many artists were doing this and the variety of subjects they sketched. Some sketched landscapes, anything that looks interesting, and others are urban sketchers. There is a whole global community dedicated to urban sketching. You can check into it at  Urban Sketchers . Another blog that inspired me to take up watercolor sketching is written by  James Gurney . He writes a daily blog and does a lot of sketching in different media such as watercolor, gouache, and casein. He is an excellent artist and provides a lot of great information on his blog, I look forward to reading his daily posts. As I researched watercolor sketching, I had not thought about " Expanding My Artistic Horizons." Now I realize why I want

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 3 Date: 05/26/2017 Subject: Yellowwood Lake, Brown County Indiana Medium: Oil on Paper Link to painting sessions:  Session 1.  ,  Session 2. Due to other obligations that seem to take over the days and weeks, I have not been able to spend much time painting. I was able to participate in the  T. C. Steele Festival of Flowers Paint Out  this month, so it was a nice break from other things that needed to be done. I decided today I was going to spend some time on the expanding your artistic horizons series and decided to work on the Yellowwood Lake painting. I have included the photo of the painting at the end of session 2 for comparison on progress. I spent time working on the middle values and adding details to the foreground. As mentioned in the previous post, I need to improve my ability to paint proper values. Comparing the two paintings, I am not sure I made much progress today. Also, I added highlights and shadows to th