Today we’d like to introduce you to Burney.
Hi Burney, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I think like most artists, I showed interest in drawing as a kid. Copying cartoon/comic book characters, doodling in textbooks and going way overboard on Birthday cards. It was pretty apparent from an early age that I had little-to-no interest in any other curriculum and remember thinking that being a professional artist as a ‘grown-up’ sounded awesome. Throughout my teens and twenties, I worked regular jobs, partied a lot and drew as a very back-burner hobby – mostly for fun at home, my friends, bands and a few local businesses. Selling the occasional drawing for pennies here and there.
About ten years ago, I began posting some pen & ink artwork every so often on social media and I was beginning to gather a small group of clientele from the exposure, getting the paying job more frequently and being really excited (and shocked) that people wanted to buy my work.
Around the same time, I got fired from my day job and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I worked a couple more part-time jobs over the following year and while putting art before everything and everyone, gathering more clients, gaining exposure and networking with fellow artists, I was finally making just enough money to put-in my two weeks at my last official day job.
At the time, I leaned way into the comic book pen & ink art styles of Bernie Wrightson, Frank Frazetta, Mark Schultz and many other ink wizards of illustration. Their inspiration carried me a long way, along with the help and trust of many loyal and reoccurring clients like Creature Skateboards, Dan Fogler, Simon Chan, Jason Tarpey of Eternal Champion, Joe Manganiello and so many more worthy of honorable praise.
About six years ago, while working on a series of character designs for a comic book, I realized I didn’t know the first thing about the true forms of the human figure and it pushed me to educate myself further. While searching out reference art and instructional material, I was continually drawn to the oil paintings of the old masters. I realized that classical, traditional and academic art were the techniques and styles I wanted to absorb and emulate and began to grind away on learning to identify and render forms, gesture, structure and light on these forms and how the light reacted on the surfaces and objects around them.
Craving and needing more instruction, I considered the idea of moving to Florence to study at the Academy of Art, but it was just financially out of grasp. With more research, I attempted to follow what might be the Academy’s curriculum as closely as possible with what I knew about them and quickly started seeing progress in my all of my work, and mostly my figurative drawing. Throughout this period the urge to learn oil painting was growing and I understood that I needed to study and work with graphite or charcoal to continue advancing toward my long trajectory goal of eventually making oil my primary medium. I dropped the pen and ink from commissions and for the following few years only used graphite and viewed each job as training-in-graphite to fulfill the needs of the client’s requests as I studied realism.
The work I’ve shared here with you are some of the more accomplished graphite drawings from those years.
I’m very happy to say that I’m currently painting in oil full time, continuing my never-ending pursuit in art and still work for many of those same clients to this day. I’ve finished several oil commissions and I’m looking forward to painting many more.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Struggles and difficulties are expected and do arise daily, but I can’t complain. It’s incredible to be making a living creating art.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work? What are you known for? What sets you apart from others and most proud of?
In August 2021, after a few years of studying in almost solely graphite and charcoal, I made the full transition to oils full time and I’m completely in love with the work and feeling of accomplishment that goes into the practice.
Not being content with my work has been very beneficial. I think I find a sense of pride in knowing I can find the flaws and improve on them. Being instinctively unsatisfied, underwhelmed and unimpressed by certain sections or even whole finished works fuels the progression in the following piece. What makes it all acceptable is that I know I’m putting everything I’ve got into each minute of the work and to try any less would be the only way I could truly fail.
Most of us want to be seen as stylistically unique in our work and many artists very much are known for that unique quality, even at a young age. Some try so hard that it gets lost in the ether. Whether my work is set apart from others or not….that’s up to the audience. I just do the work, focus on fun, learning new techniques, improving the quality of my work and avoid throwing myself off a building when I can’t get an accurate likeness in a portrait!
Contact Info:
- Email: burneyillustration@gmail.com
- Website: www.burney.bigcartel.com
- Instagram: batdog
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