Artist Statement
Art Emotions
I loved oils because of the buttery gradient effects I could achieve with them. I love watercolor and India Inks because they are quick drying and patterns that emerge can be very creatively stimulating. Digital painting has zero fumes & brush clean-up. Digital photography is a fun way to compose reality into paintings.
I love the peace and serenity of nature. One of my goals as an artist is to inspire the awe I feel seeing a sunrise or sunset. When I listen to music while painting, it may be anything from country, instrumental harps, new age, classical or jazz to recorded sounds of nature. Painting is painting – traditional or digital require technique, attention to detail, composition, perspective, experimentation and willingness to put passion into your painting.
Assorted Drawing & India Inks & Watercolor Inks
Traditional Painting
I had to quit painting in oils due to Rheumatoid Arthritis pain from putting brush to canvas.
Comments about my oil paintings:
“Reminds me of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings, bold but subtle.” “They are so very luminous.” “You have such a unique color sense.”
I was thrilled when my art was favorably compared with Georgia O’Keefe’s. Until I was compared to her … I did not know who she was or how important to art she was.
I currently use watercolors, watercolor pencils, Derwent: Inktense Blocks & Inktense watercolor pencils, India Inks and fabric dye markers as well as fabric dyes.
I *generally* use Strathmore140 lb watercolor paper, silk scarves or 100% cotton bandanas for my various art products.
Digital Painting Arctic Melody by Barbara Burns
Digital Painting
I have Corel Painter IX, X and 11 (I have not upgraded to Painter 12 yet) – they allow me the freedom to experiment with new methods, new subjects and no messy cleanup (cleaning brushes and palettes is my LEAST favorite part of painting). I REALLY love PNG support 
I found a way to continue my oil painting style of painting using a computer, graphics software & a graphics tablet. Using a graphics tablet is good for me with my Rheumatoid Arthritis – no pain involved like trying to hold large paint brushes and no pain from brush against canvas.
I love Digital painting because it is easy, fun, no mess and gives me freedom to be even more creative – I won’t shred the paper if my sketching lines need cleaned up or erased 500 times and the layers give me the ability to build a painting without ruining a good part I have finished. Or I can choose to completely paint “wet into wet” digitally and let the strokes flow into being the painting I need to create as it happens. The paint stays wet for me too between sessions if I cannot complete it that day and do not go back to it for six months!
One pro to Digital painting is no messy cleanup and no fumes. Another pro is that you do not have to pay someone to photograph your artwork to get a quality digital file to make prints or posters – you’ve created that file yourself.
One con is that you do not have a canvas or piece of paper covered with traditional art media on the table in front of you to sell as an original one-of-a-kind artwork. Another con is that those happy accidents in watercolors, India inks, oils, and acrylic pigments media can be done away with quite easily if you use layers or undo judiciously and then you lose the opportunity to learn from those accidents or you can overwork your artwork to the point where it loses all spontaneity.
Seascape – Marine – Ocean – Lake – Water – Tropical
Enjoying painting is a gift we give ourselves. Painting is a lot of fun! It is also a lot of hard work. I love lakes & the sea … I love to watch the water but I cannot swim … when I first started painting in oils … no one had told me that water was one of the hardest things to paint and that it would drive me crazy trying … so I painted water … and people told me how much they liked my water in all my oil paintings.
Location: Des Moines, Iowa
The very first oil painting I ever sold had a ship coming out of fog in the water. I sold it to a young man who worked as a waiter at a food counter in a grocery store in Des Moines, IA.
Then I took a class with an artist in Iowa who had been painting for many years and teaching classes for many years too … she mentioned to the entire class just how hard it is to paint water and that even after years of doing so … she still failed miserably many times.
I did not say a word … this artist then went on to to tell us that painting on black canvas is extremely difficult also and only true professionals do it well and we should do our best to avoid trying until we had learned enough to feel comfortable trying and failing.
I did not mention that I had been painting on black canvas with Bob Ross painting on TV for some time and that I found it to be lots of fun and no harder than anything else in painting.
Different Strokes Really Are For Different Folks
That was my first lesson that different things in painting are harder for some than others.
For example, I cannot do the Bob Ross method of painting snow on the mountain … I know how .. I just do not have the vision to do it accurately … with no depth perception … I can be an inch away from the canvas and not even grazing it .. or I can be pressing the knife way to hard on the canvas and nearly cutting it through. I learned other ways to deal with creating snow on the mountain … rocks are rather difficult for me … I think part of it is that I do not see them the way others do and I forget to try for the 3D look of them.
Critically Important
The main thing I want to stress in marine and seascape painting is that you really need to enjoy it and enjoy watching the water or objects that go into tropical painting.
Location: Texas
I watched a man painting a seascape in watercolors at the beach in Galveston one day – he did an okay job but after he was done … he made a comment that surprised me … his comment was how glad he was that this assignment for an art class was over and how much he hated painting the ocean and how he would never paint another ocean picture now that he was done with the class.
We talked for a few minutes and it turns out that watching the ocean makes him feel seasick and dizzy – he didn’t know it when he signed up for a seascape watercolor class … but he certainly found out quickly … the assignment was to paint 1 ocean / beach painting per week for 6 weeks. He wanted to learn everything he could about it … he expected to be able to use the skills learned in landscape and still life paintings – he wanted to paint water drops on leaves and farm ponds for example – he was planning on moving to the Midwest where there is no ocean at all though after spending so much time being sick at the beach.
Seascapes Choose Artists
You’ll know fairly quickly if you like seascape or marine painting if you are new to it … there are so many aspects to it though that you never have to paint actual water to be a marine artist … harbor scenes with piers, boat houses, ropes and birds are very fun plus popular scenes with art buying tourists too.
Location: South Dakota
Enjoy painting or photographing marine subjects – find your focal point … capture the moment … share the moment! There are plenty of opportunities to paint water in the Midwest too … lakes, rivers, puddles … all have gorgeous scenery around them – landscapes with a lake or river are very popular with painting buyers everywhere!