Michael Burns Art

Gouache Study - Selma's Garden While my wife was attending a dyeing workshop at the T. C. Steele Historic site  I decided to paint a gouache field study of the entrance to Selma's garden. The garden was recently restored to what it would have been when Selma created the garden. I intended to only paint a cluster of flowers, but the temperature hit 92, so the only shade tree I could find was at the garden entrance. I spent about 2 hours on the painting, but it was enough to capture the scene and lighting as the afternoon sun hit the daffodils. Instead of doing another painting I spent the remaining hour swinging on the porch swing at the House of the Singing Winds.  Since it was a Sunday afternoon, there was no noise from workers on the grounds so you could easily imagine what it was like for T. C. Steele and Selma to live there and the peaceful environment the location provided.  As I relaxed in the breeze and the sound of the frogs in the gol...

Spent about 4 hours at the Goeth Link observatory touring the grounds and doing a quick gouache sketch of the observatory.Goethe Link was open to the public to view the building, telescope and the field of daffodils planted by Dr. Goethe Links wife in the 30's and 40's. Dr. Link was a well-known surgeon and built the observatory and 36-inch telescope for his own personal enjoyment and to satisfy his interest in astronomy. Goeth Link is located about 3 miles south of Mooresville Indiana in Morgan County.

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 5 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 Links to painting sessions:  Session 1 ,  Session 2 ,  Session 3 ,  Session 4 Painting A Wren In Gouache - Final Session Since I don't feel I am continuing to make any progress on the painting, I made this the final session. I feel like I did a pretty good job for never painting with Gouache. Most of the time was spent trying to bring out more details on the Wren, but in the end, I think I made very little progress from session 4. I worked a lot on the wings trying to define the feathers in more detail, but could not get the proper shift in values to make the wings stand out.  It is fun and sometimes frustrating when you are trying to learn a new medium. Sometimes...

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series Painting Session 4 Date: 09/04/2017 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 Links to painting sessions:  Session 1 ,  Session 2 ,  Session 3 I spent this session working on all three flowers and leaves, working to refine them to the point of some level of realism. Still not there, but I think I may have to be satisfied until I can learn more about the properties of Gouache. It is a challenge to switch from one medium to the other such as oil to gouache, especially from one that dries slowly to one that almost dries instantly. It gives you a new sense of appreciation for those artists past and present who mastered multiple mediums. In this session, I tried to blend lights and darks using various amounts of water along with brushing techniques. Gouache does not ...

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 opa...

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...

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 Geograp...