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 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 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 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

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 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