Michael Burns Art

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.

Subject: Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on Apple Blossom Date: 03/30/2018 Painting Session: 3 Medium: Acrylic on Illustration Board Previous Sessions:  Session 1 , Session 2 This session was dedicated to working on the flowers and the leaves with most of the time spent on the flowers. I made multiple passes on the flowers trying to work in the gradual color variations on the flowers. But I was always fighting the quick drying time of the acrylic paint which limited my ability to achieve a smooth change in color and soft edges. I tried adding fluid retarder along with flow release which helped a little, but the paint still seemed to dry within seconds. The good thing about acrylic is the drying time which allows you rework an element in your painting in a short period. But the trade-off, at least on paper and board is the paint dries to quick. I finally got to the point I was re-working the flowers and seemed to not be making any progress, so I decided to move on to the le

Tiger Swallowtail Session 2 Subject: Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on Apple Blossom Date: 03/10/2018 Painting Session: 2 Medium: Acrylic on Illustration Board Colors Used: Titanium White, Carbon Black, Lemon Yellow, Brilliant Blue Previous Sessions:  Session 1 I spent this session layering in a mixture of lemon yellow and Titanium White on the butterfly. I also added another layer of Carbon Black to the dark areas of the butterfly and added more detail to the body. You can see the details in the larger photo below. I used a liner brush to paint in the hairs on the body, there is more work to do in this area. I need to add more yellow and try to make the hairs a little softer. I used Brilliant Blue to add the blue accents around the tail. I need to refine this area more to bring out the blue and soften the edges. Will add another layer of yellow in the next session and try to achieve some variation of yellow tones on the wings.