Michael Burns Art

American Robin - Acrylic on Paper The 8" x 10' painting of an American Robin and Spring Crocus was done in acrylic paint on grey toned watercolor paper. I drew the composition on paper then transferred it to watercolor paper mounted on a board. I tried to paint in thin layers to reduce the visibility of any brush stroke. I used Golden acrylic flow release and Golden Gloss Glazing liquid to aid in the workability of the paint.

Painting Session 4 Date: 12/30/2017 Subject: Bobwhite Quail Medium: Mixed Media (Watercolor, Gouache, Ink) Paper: Canson : 90lb traditional surface watercolor paper Gouache: Zinc White, Naples Yellow, Yellow Light, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna Ink: Prismacolor fine blank ink permanent marker Links to previous sessions: Session 1 , Session 2 , Session 3 Gouache, Ink Bobwhite quail This is only the second painting I have done in gouache and the first full painting. It turned out to be quite the challenge. Although the quail was not easy to paint it did not pose as many challenges as the grass and background.  I never really got either to the point I was satisfied, but I decided to stop before overworking and ruined the painting.  I think I experienced all of the difficulties with gouache people talk about, especially the drying properties. I could never get the values the way I wanted and any highlights on the grass. I struggled with the paint underneath reactivati

Painting Session 3 Date: 12/30/2017 Subject: Bobwhite Quail Medium: Mixed Media (Watercolor, Gouache, Ink) Paper: Canson: 90lb traditional surface watercolor paper Watercolors used: French Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Brilliant Yellow, Winsor Red Gouache: Zinc White, Naples Yellow, Indian Yellow, Yellow Light, Ultramarine Blue Ink: Prismacolor fine blank ink permanent marker Links to previous sessions:   Session 1 ,  Session 2 Due to scale and perspective issues between the quail and barn, I decided to take the barn out of the painting and raise the horizon line. I am not sure why I did not notice the problem in the original sketch, but I didn't. I wanted the barn to be back in the distance, but I got the perspective wrong and ended up with a giant quail towering over something that looks more like a small dog house rather than a barn. I did start to notice the issue at the end of session one but thought I would continue to paint it as is or possibly make s

Painting Session 2 Date: 12/12/2017 Subject: Bobwhite Quail Medium: Mixed Media (Watercolor, Gouache, Ink) Paper: Canson: 90lb traditional surface watercolor paper Watercolors used: French Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Brilliant Yellow, Winsor Red Gouache: Zinc White, Naples Yellow, Indian Yellow, Yellow Light, Ultramarine Blue Ink: Prismacolor fine blank ink permanent marker Link to previous sessions -  Session 1 Painting Bobwhite Quail Session 2 During session two I spent time working on the overall details of the painting.  The head of the quail is painted with watercolor, and I incorporated small strokes of black ink to add detail to the dark portion that runs from the beak down to the neck. Also added some ink at the end of the tail. The rest of the bird is still all in watercolor, with a lot of work still to do. I may add in some gouache where I want the features to be more opaque. I darkened the sky, but I was a little unhappy with the results so a

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 1 Date: 11/29/207 Subject: Bobwhite Quail Medium: Mixed Media (Watercolor, Gouache, Ink) Paper: Canson: 90lb traditional surface watercolor paper Watercolors used: French Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Pthalo Blue, New Camboge (yellow), French Ochre, Vermillion Hue Gouache: none Ink: none Add caption I decided to do another Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series, and as before I wanted to try a medium I have little experience using. After reading an article about James Audubon by Reba Fishman Snyder titled " Complexity in Creation: A Detailed Look at the Watercolors for the Birds of America" I was inspired to try a mixed media painting. The study of the Audubon paintings was performed by the New York Historical Society, and Reba writes how James Audubon used different techniques and methods creating the paintings for the Birds of America. According to Reba "Over 300 drawings for The Birds

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 4 Date: 11/03/2017 Subject: Eastern Blue Bird on Bittersweet Branch Medium: Acrylic Colors Used In This Session:  Titanium White, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Golden Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Brown, Black, Cad Yellow, Yellow Ochre Surface: Crescent Hot Press 200 Illustration Board, Cream Surface Link to previous sessions  Session 1 ,  Session 2,   Session 3 I finally got back to painting on the Eastern Bluebird, so I decided I would finish the painting. Session 4 actually consisted of two separate days of painting 4 to 5 hours each day. I continued to work on the bird, trying to achieve more realism in the feathers. I got to a point where I was not making progress and seemed to be painting the same areas over and over again. So I decided to stop painting on the bluebird and be satisfied with the current results. I also finished up painting the branch and tried to get more detail in the berries and the husks. I just neve

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 3 Date: 09/22/2017 Subject: Eastern Blue Bird on Bittersweet Branch Medium: Acrylic Colors Used In This Session:  Titanium White, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Pthalo Blue,  Golden Ochre, Burnt Sienna Surface: Crescent Hot Press 200 Illustration Board, Cream Surface Link to previous sessions  Session 1 ,  Session 2 I spent about 4 hours today working on the Bluebird trying to bring out more detail in the wings and make the Bird a little more 3 dimensional. Although, I am not satisfied with the results I may have to call the bird done. I repainted the wings multiple times but never could seem to obtain the results I wanted on the feathers. This is the second painting in acrylic I have done as part of this series with all of the same challenges I have written about in the past. But as with all things in life you learn as you go and get better with time. This applies to painting and different mediums. Even though I am not sat

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 2 Date: 08/18/2017 Subject: Eastern Blue Bird on Bittersweet Branch Medium: Acrylic Colors Used In This Session:  Titanium White, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cad Red Light, Golden Ochre, Burnt Sienna Surface: Crescent Hot Press 200 Illustration Board, Cream Surface Link to previous sessions  Session 1 Hard to believe it has been almost four weeks since I worked on the first session of the Eastern Bluebird. I have had other obligations and continue to spend most of my time on a few oil paintings. I like to work on the Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series because it is a nice break from Oil painting and is a chance to try something new. I spent most of this session trying to achieve a more realistic looking bird. But after comparing the end of session 1 photo to the session 2 photos, I am not sure I made a lot of progress. Trying to achieve some sense of volume in the bird's body is a challenge with Acrylic. What see

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 3 Date: 08/03/2017 Subject: Wren on A Dogwood Branch Medium: Gouache on Illustration Board Colors Used In This Session:  Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Zinc White, Alizarin Crimson, Lemon Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, Lamp Black Links to painting sessions:  Session 1 ,  Session 2 End of Session 3  I spent about four hours during this session, painting all of the elements in the picture. Gouache seems challenging to get used to when most of your experience is using oils. James Gurney wrote a blog post titled "The Seven Gouache Hazards and How to Escape Them."   I would suggest anyone new to gouache read the post as it will help you better understand the properties of this medium. One of the tips from James in his article I learned first-hand today. "New layers reactivate previous layers of paint,"  James suggests in his post to lay down transparent layers and build up to the more opaque layer

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 1 Date: 07/23/2017 Subject: Eastern BlueBird on Bittersweet Branch Medium: Acrylic on Illustration Board Colors Used In This Session:  Titanium White, Cobalt Blue, Brilliant Blue, Cad Red Light, Naphthol Red Light, Golden Ochre, Burnt Sienna Surface: Crescent Hot Press 200 Illustration Board, Cream Surface Bluebird at the end of Session 1 If you need some inspiration for painting birds, you have to look no further than artist William Zimmerman. "One of America’s greatest bird artists spent the bulk of his career in Brown County surrounded by nature and the birds that he loved. On a scale with Audubon, William Zimmerman illustrated a host of important books, including The Birds of Indiana and Waterfowl of North America, along with the woodpecker volume of The Life Histories of North American Birds. He also spent a great deal of his career working with environmental groups to protect the habitats of the birds and wi

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 2 Date: 07/15/2017 Subject: Wren on A Dogwood Branch Medium: Gouache on Illustration Board Colors Used In This Session:  Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Sepia, Zinc White, Indian Yellow, Grenadine Links to painting sessions:  Session 1 Wren on Dogwood in Gouache Session 2 In the previous post on this subject I mentioned, I had never painted in Gouache, and the only watercolor painting I have ever done was a few watercolor sketches. I did do some quick small sketches with Gouache before starting this session. I wanted to see how the paint flowed on the illustration board and how easy the paint reactivated with water. I did some research online to see how other artists painted with gouache and the techniques they use.  There is an excellent article about the use of Gouache titled   "Painting With Gouache"    from the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators website.  With all mediums, there seem to be multiple tec

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 1 Date: 07/03/2017 Subject: Wren on Dogwood Branch Medium: Gouache on Illustration Board Several things have inspired me to paint in Gouache.  One is James Gurney  who is the creator of the Dinotopia Series of Books. I found his blog when I was searching the internet about watercolor sketching. You can spend hours reading through his blog and watching him work magic with Gouache in his sketchbook. James posts videos of his sketching in Gouache, Watercolor, and Casein. The second inspiration to paint in Gouache came when I visited the Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Florida Art  in Daytona Beach, FL. Within that museum, there were paintings by artist and illustrator Walter Weber .  Walter Weber was born in 1906 and attended the University of Chicago and the Art Institute if Chicago. He was a mammalogist and is well known for his role as the  Chief Nature Artist for National Geographic Society. I have been to a lot of Museums

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