Be inspired by Sarah Burns, an artist painting with acrylic to capture the beauty of nature. From forests to coastal adventures, explore her unique techniques, creative process, and upcoming participation in Acrylic Live 2025.
“I’m not trying to build up a collection of paintings to sell to a gallery. The reason I paint is because it drives me, as an artist and as a human being, to be in nature,” says artist Sarah Burns, who will be one of the faculty members at the first edition of Acrylic Live, online March 26-28, 2025, with an Essential Techniques Day on March 25.
Born in the country and raised in upstate New York, she has lived in the midst of farmland and forests. It gave her the opportunity to practice painting outdoors and develop a special feeling for nature. “The idea of immersing myself in the forest has stayed with me and I know that I can always return to the ‘forest’, to nature, where I can find my sense of peace,” says the artist.
The love of lush nature combined with her sense of adventure has driven her to undertake a major challenge project called “The Sketchy Scotland: A Coastal Journey,” documented on her YouTube channel.
The project consists of a long journey, driven by her curiosity to explore every inch of Scotland, starting from the coast, walking, cycling and even kayaking, with her sketchbook and cameras at the ready. It is a project that will keep her busy for at least seven years and is a great challenge for her as, having lived in Colorado for ten years, she sees the coast as a “beautiful alien” to be discovered.
3- Sarah-Burns-Plein-Air-Acrylic-Cullen-Bay-Overlook. (With this painting she was experimenting with acrylic markers (containing fluid acrylics) for the first time, and she said it was a blast!)
As a teenager, Sarah also played outdoor sports such as volleyball and tennis. As a big fan of video games, her painting journey started with painting video game characters and film scenes like landscapes from The Lord of the Rings.
She was also very inspired by James Gurney, author of the book Dinotopia. “Seeing that kind of art in a book really inspired me and made me think that I didn’t have only to paint traditional top subjects. I can paint anything I want,” says the artist, who has since taken that as permission to paint whatever inspires her.
After a few years of painting more fantasy art and media-inspired works, she tried to bridge her love of nature and art. “And that’s when I heard about plein air painting through the Plein Air Podcast by Eric Rhoads,” says the artist. who was in Colorado at the time. After that, she went up into the mountains with a little watercolor kit, tried it, and became hooked.
After high school, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the New York State Collage of Art and Ceramics at Alfred University, NY. But after the 2008 recession, she decided to go back to college and earned a second degree in Interior Design with a specialization in Sustainability from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, CO, both cum laude.
“I went back to school for interior design because I have to pay the bills, but I always had art in the back of my mind, like drawing and not so much painting, although that’s what I do now,” she said, adding, “I really missed that creative side of my life.”
Since then, she has moved in many creative ways, using different mediums, including oil. It was only when she needed to travel and find something easy to move that she decided to use acrylic gouache and watercolor.
Sarah always drew and painted whatever caught her eye, but “the big challenge,” as she puts it, was when she decided to switch from using photo references to painting from life. “Painting in plein air kept me going even though I had to go through a lot of typical beginner’s hurdles, like learning how to mix colors and learning how to draw, and when you’re kind of self-guided, it’s very frustrating sometimes,” she said.
Sarah’s technical process begins with sitting in a place for a few minutes to observe it, to understand the reason why her eyes have stopped there. She then captures the spot, or details of the spot, that she wants to represent and takes a series of photographs and drone shots to get a complete and detailed definition of the place. She makes sketches on the spot in watercolor or acrylic gouache and writes about whatever catches her eye or helps her to remember the unique details of a place.
She uses watercolor and acrylic gouache because they’re much easier to travel with and they dry much quicker than oils, for example. “When you paint outdoors, it has to be a quick session because of the light,” she said. Sarah usually spends no more than 40 minutes in a location, and her sketches and paintings are a travel diary of sorts for her.
Sarah starts to paint abstractly from the first or second layer and usually likes to use a board as a base, especially for the larger pieces, as it provides a firm support for many layers. She likes to add texture with pastes or thick layers of paint, then she sands it down and adds more. She also likes to use many layers of fluid acrylics and to allow the paint to surprise her. When she begins to see the painting emerge following the concept of ‘flow’ and ‘pathways’ in the environment, she goes straight into the detail.
Sarah, like many artists, said that although she had a more traditional art education, listening to Eric’s Plein Air Podcast gave her so much information to help her on her artistic journey. Indeed, it’s hard not to see the atmosphere of abstract nature and its colors, which she interprets with creativity and confidence, breathe in her paintings.
Acrylic Live will blow you away and it will be another incredible event to put on your diary as a not-to-be-missed annual opportunity to meet exceptional and always generous artists like Sarah Burns, who will be painting a landscape of Scotland during the event. Visit AcrylicLive.com now to learn more and register.
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