Biography

Scott Burdick was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1967 where his mother and father early on encouraged his interest in Art. “I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a child and remember my mother showing me how to transform simple shapes like circles, triangles, and squares into objects like planes, helicopters, and fish. It seemed such a magical thing and made spending so much time in casts and on crutches much more bearable.”

In high school, Scott began taking life-drawing classes at the American Academy of Art under the legendary Bill Parks. “Though I’d always loved drawing, it was Mr. Parks who filled me with the enthusiasm and discipline necessary to improve my skills. His love of painting and creative expression infected us all.” After finishing the Academy, Scott continued his study at the Palette and Chisel Art club, where he met his wife, painter Susan Lyon. “It’s a wonderful thing being able to paint together all the time and grow as artists together,” Scott says.

His ideas for paintings come from everywhere. “What makes a subject attractive to me are the same things that attract us all. The beauty of a young girl, the character of a weathered face, the solitude of a farm at sunset, or even the story itself behind someone or something that makes it interesting.” Scott believes it is the job of the artist to recognize this when it happens, analyze why, and use his technical skills to convey the feeling to someone else. He notes that some paintings are as simple as stopping at the sight of something interesting, while others may take more time to research than to actually paint.

Today, Scott and Susan live in a rural area of North Carolina. Surrounded by forests and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, their house is a perfect resting place after the many trips they take throughout the world in search of subject matter to paint.

Artist Statement

“I see painting as both a way of exploring the world and then as the vehicle of sharing those discoveries with others. I travel to find subjects to paint as much as paint so I can travel and expand my horizons. Through this unique language, one can say things that are impossible with words.”

Scott’s Website

Be sure to visit Scott’s Website to see more of his work and to learn more about him.

http://www.scottburdick.com

Secrets of Drawing

Be sure to also check out Scott’s drawing video, “Secrets of Drawing”, where Scott discusses the technical aspects of measuring, values, shapes, and all the considerations in drawing a portrait. You will see two portrait demonstrations, in addition to numerous side examples to illustrate the various points covered.

Follow This Link for a Preview  of this Video

Ordering Details

Portrait Painting Demonstration – “Brittany”

Once I’d figured out the correct size of my canvas (26″ by 50″), I started with a few basic charcoal marks to place the head and make sure I had it approximately life-size. For this painting I didn’t draw out any of the features since the subject is simple enough that I can just paint and work out the details as I go. The main advantage of this approach is that it keeps you from painting up to lines and ending up with stale brushwork. To paint this way requires a great deal of drawing practice since you are basically thinking about your drawing and proportions with every brushstroke, rather than concentrating on drawing first and then painting next.

Here you can see the underlying, large shapes that I started with. I’ve already started laying in the smaller shapes of the eyes over the top of the tone of the face, but you can still see the underlying shapes of the nose, mouth and chin before the details of those areas have been placed. Getting these large shapes correct before going into the details are the most essential part of your painting.

Now I continue working out the medium sized shapes of the nose and lip area. Notice how I’m not dividing the lips along anatomical divisions, but by the large light patterns, treating the upper and lower lips as the same shape both in the light and shadow. Always start with the largest, simplest shape you can and then go onto smaller shapes on top of this.

Each new element that I add is carefully compared to what’s already on the canvas. To determine the exact placement of the ear, for example, I first held up my brush horizontally across the photograph and checked where the top and bottom of the ear came in relation to the eyes and nose. Then, to find out how far to the left the ear should be, I measured the distance from the side of the model’s left eye to the outside edge of the ear (on the photograph) and compared that unit to portions of the face I’d already drawn. For instance, the distance from the outside edge of the model’s left eye to the outside edge of the ear is the same as the distance from the outside edge of the model’s left eye to the inside corner of her right eye. Since I already had the eyes worked out on the canvas, I simply used my brush to measure that distance and then made a mark where the outside edge of the ear will be. I do this constantly whenever I come to something new in a painting (especially if it is a large distance). Measuring and drawing will eventually become so natural that you do it almost without thinking and it takes but a couple of seconds.

As I slowly define the boundaries of the face, I’m constantly holding my brush up horizontally and vertically to see where landmarks line up with things I’ve already painted. Notice also how nice a variety of edges you can achieve when working into paint already there.

I just slowly and methodically keep working from one thing to the next. With a palette knife, I block in some red strokes for the shirt.

Now I paint in the details of the lips and continue refining the features. You can leave things loose the way they were at the earlier stages or just start refining them until you have a very polished and detailed rendering. It’s really just a matter of what you’re going for in that particular painting.

Here’s a close-up of the lips and nose so you can see the brushwork. Be especially conscious when doing the darks in areas like this that are surrounded by light lest you make the accents too dark. Squint and compare them to large areas of darks. Photographs will often push many of the darks into pure black, regardless of their actual relationship in real life. Think of these small dark accents the way you would if painting a tree branch against a light sky. The thinner the branch gets, the lighter it appears because it is more and more influenced by the value of the sky around it. This is what is happening with small darks like nostrils and the accents at the corners of the lips. The same is true, by the way for lights surrounded by darks. Think, in this case, of sky holes in trees. The smaller the openings, you must actually mix up a darker color.

Here is the face for the most part finished, though I do end up doing little adjustments throughout the rest of the painting as I see them.

Here I start blocking in the hand and arm, starting with the large shapes first and measuring, measuring, measuring!

Getting into details in the hand and deciding to go with a lighter color for the shirt.

To make sure I get the left arm right, I take a few measurements and sketch in with my brush a few main shapes.

Once again, just slowly going from one shape to the next, fitting in each puzzle piece of the subject. I’m not thinking any differently when paining a tree, arm, or eye — they’re all just abstract shapes, of a certain value and color, in a precise place.

Using some mineral spirits, I think down the paint and wash in some colors to go behind the bamboo on the left. This is mainly just to kill down the white so I won’t be struggling to paint in between all the vertical shapes of the bamboo later on.

Changed my mind; I think the girl’s shirt was better the darker red, after all!

Here’s the final painting.

This is Part 2 of Sierra Splendor, a Landscape Painting Demonstration by Mike Callahan.

Please click here to view Part 1 of this Demonstration.

Sierra Splendor Landscape Painting Demonstration Continued

31.) With my thin underpainting in place, I can now begin to paint the trees that cover it

32.) And so it looked when I was about half-way done with the trees…

33.) The trees too, I paint alternatively employing knife and brush…this a great technique for anything that has a lot of texture…

34.) Here it is, about 6 a.m. as I leave my studio once again to get ready for the day job…

35.) Coffee is a great ally for these early morning painting sessions…those of you on my email newsletter probably remember this shot that I sent out when the painting was still in progress. I’m roughly a little past half done at this stage…

36.) A shot showing the tree covered area mostly done…

37.) I now begin to concentrate on the manzanita-covered, sun-bathed area to the right of the painting. The values on this side of the “bowl” are much brighter because one, it’s in the full sun, and two, manzanita is much lighter in color than the pine trees that are to the left…it is also a much lower-growing plant and will receive more top-lighting from the Sun as well adding to it’s lighter appearance in the painting…

38.) I now begin to work on the shoreline of Lower Sardine Lake…

39.) As I begin to paint the reflections in the water, I must keep mindful of several things. First, the viewer’s eye is pretty high in this composition and as such will see a steep reflection in the water meaning that from this perspective one wouldn’t see the entire mountain reflected, only a very small portion of the nearest ridge as the mountian recedes fairly rapidly even though it’s so incredibly steep…Secondly, I have to be careful with my values, lights will be darker than the areas they reflect, and darks will be lighter than the areas they reflect in general. the closer an object to its reflection, the more closely in value that reflection will be to the object’s values…I know, that’s a lot to wrap your mind around…let’s move on…

40.) Here’s the the progress with the lake mostly done…

41.) I’m now going to move on to the “foreground” section of the painting…I paint in the tree tops that are peeking up behind the near ridge using a two value block-in process as well…I paint in the “darks” first…

42.) …and then come back and paint in the “lights”…

43.) I continue with that process untill I have not only the tree tips peeking up from behind the ridge, but also the larger trees that are growing near the top of the ridge…I now begin to concentrate on the manzanita covered ridge itself…

44.) The large, foreground rock has a lot of texture, so once again, I’ll alternate between brush and knife…

45.) As I begin to paint the rest of the ridge, I start by scumbling in a thin but darker burnt orange to bring that part of my underpainting a little more contrast giving the illusion of closer proximity to the viewer…

46.) I follow with my two-value approach, laying in the darker green value…

47.) …then the lighter green values and a few grey bushes and rocks…

48.) …following that with some warm and cool tones in the outcropping of rocks that border the trail…

49.) Once I finish with my initial two-values, I can then go back and put in highlights and accents to finish things up…

50.) I then lay in a couple of values for the path using mostly my knife…

51.) And here’s the painting as it nears completion…I’m probably about a week away from being totally done now…

52.) I’m sure you are probably tired of the phrase “two-value” by now, but that’s exactly the approach I use to paint in the remaining trees, dark under paint first,…

53.) …and then lighter values on top…

54.) I paint a darker value for my underpainting in the foreground bushes to allow for more contrast once I apply the lights…things in the foreground most always have more contrast than things in the background…

55.) And here I begin with a middle value…I’ll come back with highlights later…

56.) I’ve one last rock to paint, the one in the bottom corner, so I block it in and then texture it with knife, etc. as you’ve already seen…

57.) I then paint in the foreground foliage and am just about done…

Sierra Splendor 40" x 60" Oil on Canvas SOLD!

Click the Image for a Larger Version of the Final Painting!

This tutorial is by Artist Mike Callahan.

Please click here to visit Mike’s website to learn more about him and to view more of his work.

Want more of Mike Callahan’s oil painting insights? Check out his 26 page downloadable e-book

In this 26 page step-by-step oil painting tutorial, nationally recognized, award winning artist Mike Callahan shows just how he paints the realistic, clear water and granite rocks of Lake Tahoe. Discover Mike’s technique for painting believable transitions from reflected surface to water that’s seen through near the shore. Includes tips on elements of the landscape as well. Follow this link to download this Ebook

About Mike

Nationally recognized, award winning artist Mike Callahan is a fourth generation Nevada native who counts himself privileged to grow up in what he believes to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains near Reno, Nevada where he still lives today. While he has been painting since childhood, he has only been painting in earnest for about the last 5 or 6 years.

Says Mike, “The topography of this area is simply phenomenal; one can go from the high desert to mountainous alpine settings in less than an hour. It is this beautiful and varied landscape that ends up being the subject for a vast majority of my paintings.”

However, if you look through the paintings on Mike’s website, you will quickly see that the Sierra landscape isn’t the only subject Mike typically paints. He also enjoys painting Western themes as well as figurative and portraits.

As you look at Mike’s work, you will notice a great color harmony throughout. While the colors in his paintings run the full spectrum of color seen in nature, harmony is maintained by Mike limiting himself to only three colors plus white on his palette. Instead of referring to this as a limited palette, Mike thinks of it as an unlimited palette as he has not found any color he desires to use that he can’t create from those primary colors.

Mike’s work has been featured in numerous solo, group, and juried shows including the 54th Juried Exhibition at the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California, the second 100 in PaintAmerica’s 2008 Paint the Parks competition, and in May of 2008, Mike received national honors at the Oil Painters of America’s National Juried Show of Traditional Oils winning a coveted Award of Excellence for his painting “Wild Mustangs.”

Please click here to visit Mike’s website to learn more about him and to view more of his work.

Click Here for a One on One Interview With This Artist

Sierra Splendor – Lanscape Painting Demonstration

1.) In the fall of 2007, I was contacted by clients who needed a large painting for their home. They weren’t sure of exactly what they wanted, but they knew they wanted something that captured the majesty and grandeur of the Sierras…I have many reference photos from hikes I’ve done in the area, so using the two photos shown above of the majestic Sierra Buttes from a ridge overlooking the Sardine lakes, I set out to paint a study…

2.) After consulting with the clients to get an understanding of what they liked, I painted the study shown above as well as another one of Long Lake (see the January 13th post on my blog) as a couple of proposals for the project. They immediately gravitated toward this one and we agreed upon it. I looked forward with great anticipation as I thought this would make a great painting…following is the chronicling of it.

3.) The painting will be 40″ x 60″, the same size as “Mt. Washington” shown hanging in my studio behind me.

I assemble the heavy stretcher bars and install a center brace for added strength before stretching the canvas…

4.) With the canvas stretched as tight as a drum (or at least as tight as I could stretch a drum), I’m now ready to begin…

5.) It’s 4:45 am and I begin to paint by mixing up a nice burnt orange color and apply it to my canvas with a large brush…this is just to tone my canvas so ultimately I’ll even it all out to the edges with a towel wetted with a little thinner…

6.) Once my canvas is toned, I use the same burnt orange color to draw in some of my major elements…shown next to it is my original study which will aid me as I progress in the painting.

7.) Here you can see the extent of the detail I give myself…not too much at this stage…

8.) My sky is broken up with clouds, so using a light blue color I define the area of clouds and sky…

9.) Once I’ve defined the areas roughly where I want the sky and clouds to be, I can begin painting that area…

10.) I start with the lighter area of the sky (generally the area nearer the horizon) and work toward the darker…

11.) I pretty much complete the sky before beginning the clouds…

12.) I usually paint dark to light, but both sky and clouds are typically exceptions for me, especially clouds because of their nature…usually the dark part of the cloud is nearer the viewer as it represents the shadow area and is often times somewhat back or top lit by the Sun…

13.) To finish the clouds, I paint the “dark” areas into the light, blending to various degrees depending on the shape and texture of the clouds…

14.) Here’s a view of the right side of the painting with the sky mostly done.

15.) Once I’m satisfied with the sky, I move on to the main focal point of the painting, the buttes. I start by thinly laying-in the dark area of the mountains. In this photo, the darks look quite dark, but in actuality, the dark areas aren’t super dark. I want these mountains to recede a bit and as such I must be careful not to go too dark in the shadows in this part of the painting.

16.) I come back into these shadow areas and work in a little texture with an even lighter “dark” color before moving on to the light side of the rugged buttes. I alternate between knife and brush in the mountains to give them just the amount of texture I want.

17.) I begin to paint the lit side of the mountains using the same general approach, I block-in using essentially only two values…

18.) I like to keep my palette very simple…at this stage of the painting you can see I only have my three basic primary colors, yellow, magenta and blue, one secondary, red (used mostly to mix the brown) and a very dark color I call “blackenough”. Through combinations of these and Titanium white I’m able to mix the few warm and cool earthtones that I use on the mountains.

19.) And so, essentially I procede in this manner across the mountains alternating between knife and brush…

20.) The difference in progress shown between this photo and the one above is about one painting session’s progress…I have a long way to go!

21.) The detail in mountains like this can be overwhelming to the painter, but to keep myself from being overwhelmed, I work in sections paying attention to the values and colors in each area as they relate to each other and the whole…

22.) Here’s an “up close” shot showing the degree of brush and knife work that make up the mountains…

23.) And here it is standing back a bit…

24.) I’m nearly done with the rugged buttes and will soon be moving on to the mid-ground part of the painting…

25.) To finish off the mountains, I have to paint in a bit of the remaining snow that usually stays on them year round…I begin with the snow in the shadow areas – though shaded, still quite light value-wise…

26.) And the light part, though quite bright isn’t really close to pure white (even though it looks so in this photo) I usually paint both clouds and snow with a fair degree of yellow mixed in…

27.) Ah, that snow is just the thing to really give some depth to these rugged peaks…

28.) Here’s a shot of the main part of the buttes in their near finished state…

29.) The tree covered mountainside in the middle ground is barely beginning to receive light as the Sun moves east to west across the sky. Being still in shadow quite a bit, I underpaint a fairly dark area before painting any of the trees that cover it. Mind you, this is still quite a bit lighter than black though it’s hard to tell that in the photo without anything to compare it to…

30.) This photo shows the actual value of that dark area a bit better than the one above…

Continue on to Part 2 of this Landscape Painting Demonstration >>

Learn & Master Painting With Gayle Levee

This Learn & Master Painting Review is a bit lengthy, but I wanted to be sure you have enough information about this course before you make the decision to purchase it.

I heard about Learn and Master Painting from an Artist friend of mine.  I asked her to recommend an all around good home study course that I could in turn recommend to you and Learn and Master Painting was at the top of her list.

Well on to the review and congratulations for making it to this page!  You have found a real person who actually owns this course so rest assured you are getting an honest review.

Learn & Master Painting is quite easily the best home instruction course available in teaching you how to paint with oils. I like to refer to Learn and Master Painting as an “Art School in a Box”, because it is quite literally like attending a professional Art School within the comfort of your own home,without the huge price tag associated with professional instruction.

What’s in the Box?

When I first received this Award Winning DVD course, before I even removed the plastic wrapping, I knew it was a quality product. Just the site of that beautiful package was enough to get me really excited. I quickly tore off the plastic wrappting and was thrilled to see what it contained.

Included in the box are (See Image on Left) :

- 20 professionally produced DVDs

- 3 Music CDs (to listen to while you paint)

- a thorough Lesson Book with supplemental information

-  access to a free online student support site.

Some Key Benefits of this Course

Professional Instructor

Learn and Master Painting home study course was designed by Master Artist, Gayle Levee. It can be quite difficult to find a teacher that is not only talented, but one that is also a good teacher and communicator. Gaylee Levee is all three. You can learn more about Gayle by visiting her website.

Professionally Produced DVD’s

The DVD’s in this course are professionally produced and of the highest quality. I was very impressed with the image and sound. You can tell the folks over at Legacy Learning Systems put a lot of time and love into creating these DVD’s.

Easy To Navigate

You will find the DVD’s are very easy to navigate through. I really love how they break down each DVD into various subtopics making it a snap to find exactly what you are looking for.

Printed Materials

This course includes a 96 page Lesson Book filled with pictures and painting techniques . Its a beautiful, professionally made, high quality book that highlights what is covered on the DVD’s. Very convenient and helpful!

3 Music CDs

Music and painting go hand and hand, so I was very excited to receive three professionally produced CD’s with this course that include 30 beautiful tracks. These songs include classical, orchestral and modern music that will serve as wonderful background music while you are painting.

This Course Assumes You Know Nothing

What I loved immediately about Learn and Master Painting, after watching the very first DVD, is how Gayle assumes you know absolutely nothing about painting. Some courses either skip over the basic fundamentals or quickly skim through them. Learn & Master Painting doesn’t do this. They want to make certain you have an excellent foundation to get your painting career off to a great start.

Online Community and Student Support

The support site is a real gem and one of my favorite benefits of this course. There you will find support and encouragement from instructor Gaylee Levee as well as from other students from all over the world.

You are never alone in the event you get stuck or have any questions. So if you decide to buy Learn & Master Painting, I encourage you to take full advantage of this added bonus.

Watch Again and Again

This is one of the best benefits of this course. You can watch the material over and over and over again until the material sinks in. You can’t do that in art school or at a workshop.

60-Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee

Legacy Learning Systems wants you to be fully satisifed with Learn & Master Painting. If you are not, all you have to do is return the course within sixty days for a full refund of the purchase price. No questions asked. It’s that easy. They get very few returns, but when they do, they are handled promptly and courteously.

Video Previews

Below are video previews taken directly from a course just to give you a taste of what’s inside:

Final Words

I know how unbelievably frustrating it is when you are just starting out. You have an enormous amount of creativity within you that is just screaming to be poured out onto the canvas, but you just can’t seem to get over those beginner hurdles. The Learn & Master Painting course is your solution.

So, if you have the desire and the patience that is necessary to become an accomplished artist and to start producing your own masterpieces, then I highly recommend you take the next step and invest in the Learn & Master Painting Course.

Gaylee Levee will take you step by step through the process of becoming an accomplished painter. You will learn about perspective, how to organize your studio, how to care for your art materials, how to develop compositions….all of the foundational skills needed to become the artist you have always aspired to be. My favorite part of this course is that you will be able to complete several paintings along with Gayle from start to finish! It doesn’t get much better than this.

Feel like you may be too experienced for this course? Think again—I bet this course has something to teach you as well. This course has advanced training like perspective and color theory that aren’t available in many training courses.

Whatever difficulties and problems you are experiencing right now, Learn & Master Painting is the solution. This course is surprisingly affordable for what it contains and there are flexible payment options to fit most budgets.

I recommend this course wholeheartedly to anyone wishing to learn how to become an accomplished artist. There is no other home study course in existence today of this caliber.

Order the world’s most complete video instruction course for painting now!

One of the biggest challenges for artists just starting out with oil painting is mixing colors. Color is a powerful tool. If handled improperly, things can become quite messy. Improperly mixed colors lead to muddy or unbalanced paintings. The good news is, with practice, you will become more skilled at mastering color in your oil paintings. I have collected a number of color mixing tutorials below including links to articles, videos and books. I hope you find these oil painting color mixing resources helpful.

VIDEOS:

How to Mix Colors for Oil Paints

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqXSLbb8NuU

All About Color

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3QM_svajFQ

How to Mix Oil Paint – Video Lessons with Hall Groat II

ARTICLES:

How to Make Better Oil Paintings: Tips & Techniques for Correctly Mixing Color

This is a great post from EmptyEasel.com that talks about correctly mixing colors from a limited palette of only 8 colors. Read the rest of this color mixing tutorial here.

Oil Painting Tips Part 2: Mixing Colors to get Brown and Black

Here is another great post from EmptyEasel.com and is a continuation of the post above that demonstrates mixing oil colors to get browns and blacks. Read this lesson here.

Bill Martins’ Guide to Oil Painting – Mixing Colors

In this post, Bill Martin talks about his full spectrum of oil colors and how he mixes tints of these colors using titanium white. Read this tutorial here.

Color Theory & Mixing – 16 Lessons in Colour Theory

This is a very thorough 16 part lesson from Wet Canvas covering color theory and color mixing. It covers everything from the history of color to the Psychology of Color. View these lessons here.

Notes on Colour Mixing by Andrew Newland

On the following page, artist Andrew Newland has provided an introduction to the theory of colour mixing.
He has intended this tutorial as a practical guide to the art of mixing oil paints. Also included is a related color mixing excercise to give yousome It is intended as a practical guide to the mixing of paints and has a related Colour mixing exercise. View this lesson and excercise here.

BOOKS: