Pyrography makes for a unique display with its varying sepia values. Adding color is strictly a personal preference and has no rules. What to use? Oil, acrylic or watercolor paint? Oil, or wax colored pencils? Stains, washes or dyes? The interaction between the wood, the color and the pyrography does have an impact as each entity within themselves react a different way with the other in terms of absorbency, transparency and compatibility. This would be another fun area in which to experiment and practice. See what combinations you like best and go with it. I just recently started using colored pencils and fell in love with the result, so I have not tried anything else...Yet.
For the final step, I spray on a coat or two of an acrylic, clear matte finish. This not only protects your woodburnings against fingerprints and dust, it also protects it against mildew (which can be brought on by high humidity). Matte or satin finish is preferred because it doesn’t create a glare and distract from your woodburning.
Pyrography can fade in strong direct artificial or natural light. To help prevent this, place in indirect, diffused light. I also choose my acrylic finish with a UV-Resistant which definitely helps protect against harmful ultraviolet light rays.
Sue Brown, Pyrographer
I recommend getting some practice in on a piece of the same kind of wood you will be using for your project. This will allow you to get the ‘feel’ of the pen and help determine just how much pressure you need to use while burning, to get the result you want. Practice also allows you to figure out just what your pen can do and what kind of burn can result from how you hold and turn it while burning. The more you practice, the better you will become, if you do it with an open mind. Use the different tips that came with your kit.
Use the universal tip for burning the fur and accent points such as the ripples, muscles, joints and even the grooves in the tree. You can even use the universal tip to do the face, but just use the very top tip of it so you don’t burn so much at a time or too dark or too deep. Keep in mind while burning the outline of the bear you don’t just make a straight solid line. Use short slightly uneven strokes of the pen to indicate the growth of hair from the body. Then go ahead and start to fill in the body, burning in the direction the fur grows. I don’t start on the face for two reasons: I like to get the feel of the pen in my hand and the heat level before I do anything that intricate.
You can use the shading tip to give contour to the outline of the bear and shade the inside of the opposite legs and maybe under his chin. You can also lightly burn over your fur, defining your muscle groups to give contour. Also, use the shading tip for the body of the tree to give it a light brown color.
To transfer your photos to the wood that you have selected, you must make sure that it is the right size. It's easy to use a copy machine or scanner to either make it bigger or smaller. At the same time copy it in black and white so it will be easier to work with and you can use the black and white gradients to determine the light and darker areas while you are woodburning your design.
Next use a sheet of graphite paper (placed between your photo and wood) and trace the outline of your design and details of the important areas such as eyes, nose, mouth and direction of the fur. If your subject isn't posed exactly the way you wanted it, now is the time to change it (tilt the head, raise the arm, etc,).
If you want to reuse the pattern many times, Trace the reproduced picture onto tracing film (durable, see through plastic) by simply placing the film over the picture and tracing the outline and important details (as described and pictured above).
Take pictures of what you would like to woodburn. They can be of anything... Take a road trip to the country for landscapes, animals, old buildings and farm equipment. Take a walk down a city street for pictures of people, modern building and cars. Go to the airport, bus or train depot or off to the lake for boats or to the ocean for bigger boats. Go through old pictures of past trips you took or simply stay at home and explore your own backyard, or make a creative still life display of your favorite things on your kitchen table. Take as many pictures as you need, both overall and close up, as these will later be used for references while you are woodburning your project.
Using your own pictures is just one way to get reference material. But if you are just starting out you may simply opt to buy a pattern book from the store.
I am a self-taught pyrographer. Although, my aim is not to teach you, I would like to certainly show you how easy and fun it can be.
If you are the least bit interested in pyrography, I encourage you to try it. There are only a few things you need to get started:
1. A woodburning kit. Most department stores and hobby/craft stores carry the basic kits. These basic kits sell for under $20 and come with several different tips and instructions on the use of those tips. While you are at it, you may want to pick up a slab or two of wood and the few other items that you will need...
2. The wood available in craft stores or the craft section of stores is usually basswood and is ideal for wood burning as it is soft, pale and even grained. If you are just starting out, you may want to choose slabs to practice on and get the feel of your woodburning pen. As you get more practice you can experiment with different kinds of woods that are harder, provide knots or are heavily grained, as well as begin burning on boxes and different shapes.
3. Go ahead and pick up a little bit of sandpaper to run over your burning surface to make sure it is nice and smooth before you start. Fine grit of 320 – 220 should do it.
4. A hobby blade (safety razor blade) is a good item to have on had if you plan to make a mistake. I used to use sandpaper to ‘sand’ away my mistakes but have found the end result is much nicer when I gently scrape it away with a hobby blade.
5. You'll need some transfer paper to trace your image on to the wood. Graphite transfer paper is better than regular carbon paper as it is easier to erase wayward marks after you are done burning. If you find yourself using the same pattern over and over again, I recommend using craft tracing film to make a template of your design. This tracing film is a durable plastic and as an added bonus you can see through it which allows the exact placement on your wood much, much easier.
6. After you finish your woodburning project, you will want to seal it with a coat or two of non-yellowing, matte acrylic or varnish.
7. You may want to pick up a pattern book or you can make your own patterns from your own pictures and I will explain how to make your own in a later post.
Okay, that is the bear basics of what you might need for our little woodburning adventure. My next four posts will be step by step processes of a woodburning project....