Pyrography Poppies

Hi all,
Despite being a busy week I managed to finish the poppy project that I was doing with my pyrography iron.

I would have liked to say that I was pleased with the result, but it was not as easy as I thought it would be after doing the initial sketch and transferring it to the wood. If there was a lesson to be leaned here it was that the initial drawing wasn't good enough and I should have sussed that out before I began burning. I followed the drawing exactly, but the flowers just didn't look right. The specific areas I'm talking about are the bits below the seed heads on both flowers. They don't look too bad in the sketch, but once I had burnt them in they didn't look right at all.

We all know that mistakes made in pyrography can't be undone, So what did I do?

 

Well if we take flower one, I managed to alter some of the shading and it sorted the issue out. However, the flower at the back was a bigger problem because there were some burn lines that even the darkest shading wouldn't hide.

 

I had no option but to try and remove the burn lines, which was going to be difficult because the image had been burn into a piece of veneer which was only 0.6mm thick. I have a set of Exacto craft knife blades and I used a couple of those to carefully scrape away the burn lines in the veneer. I took my time to ensure I didn't dig too deep and go through the veneer, and then sanded the area with a piece of 600 grit sandpaper.

 

It took several attempts at the scraping and then sanding to eradicate the marks, but eventually I won. I then did a bit of re shading to change the shape of the petals and all was well in the world of poppy petals.

 

The only issue I had now was the stalk on the flower at the front which didn't seem to be in the right place and it jarred my eye. Getting rid of this was going to be more difficult because it was burnt into an area that wasn't going to be shaded so I couldn't hide it easily.

 

In the end, I decided to move the stem and disguise the line going through it by making the stem look hairy. This left me with another line which needed to go, so I incorporated it into one of the grass blades that I decided to add to complete the cover up. As it happens, I think that the blades of grass improve the overall composition quite well.

 

When I was completely happy with the image, I gave it three coats of varnish and framed it. I then took a photo of it and stuck it up for sale on Folksy. Here is the finished article.

The moral of the story is this. Even if you do make a mistake with your pyrography iron, you always have at least two choices.
Option one.
Use a craft knife blade to scrape away the offending pyrography mark.
Option two
Modify your design to incorporate and or hide your mistake.

I have no idea what I will be working on next, so we can all have a surprise.

 

 

 

Poppies

Hi All,
Sorry it's been a long time since my last post. They say that time goes quicker as one gets older and they are right. If it carries on like this I'll be getting up before I've gone to bed.

If you were expecting to see the poppies pyrography project finished, I'm afraid it's not to be. I did however, manage to complete one poppy so I thought I would show you that.

 

I am still working on the poppy with my pyrography iron, but I thought I would point out one or two things you might want to take into account if you would like to try doing one. Please feel free to copy my drawing.

 

It is important to take your time when doing this sort of pyrography work because if you make a mistake it can't be undone. So with that in mind I set the temperature of my pyrography iron at a medium temperature. If you are using a Peter Childs machine try it on heat setting number 5. If you are using a fixed tip iron, all I can say is good luck.



I have used a spoon tip for all the work on this project and I can't imagine how it would be possible to create the effects that are required with any other tip.

I always start by burning in the outline and then once that is done I tackle the shading. This is very important and can make or break the project. I tend to pick one petal to start with and carefully put in some dark marks. If you imagine the surface of a poppy, it isn't flat, it is made up of a series of hills and valleys. So as you shade it in, try to work out in your mind's eye which bits are the valleys and which bits are the hills. Then put the darkest marks in the valleys because that is where the shade will be, and leave the tops of the hills light.

Concentrate on one petal first by putting in some shading lines and make sure each mark goes in the direction of the growth of the petal. The technique with your pyrography iron should be in one sweeping movement. Start on the outside edge and move your iron towards the centre. Because you want most of the darkest marks along the edge of the petals, it is best to take your time as you begin the burn and then slowly speed up. This will ensure that you get a graduated line. If it isn't dark enough, do it again. It is always worth practising this technique on a bit of scrap wood first to give you some confidence.

When you have one petal looking reasonable, move onto the next. Once you have all the petals complete you can adjust the tone of each one to give them some uniformity.

The pyrography marks that surround the circle in the centre of the poppy have been done by turning the heat up a little and doing lots of small stab marks with the point of the spoon tip.

If you have any questions, please let me know and with a bit of luck I will have the whole thing finished for my next post.

Pots and Poppies

Hi All,
Sorry it's been so long since my last pyrography post, but I've been up to my neck in all sorts of things. Sadly, I have very little to show for all my efforts. It is really strange for me because when I worked in a factory for nine hours a day I seemed to have lots of spare time to go fishing, do some painting  etc, but now that I am self-employed and work from home I can't find two spare seconds to rub together.

There is some good news; I have sold three pyrography items this week from my shop on Folksy and they all left good feedback. This means I need to get cracking and replenish some of my stock and I have made a start with another trinket box. These seem to be very popular at the moment so I have done another one but without the usual flowers. I have just decorated it with contours that are done to look like the grain of the wood. See the photos below.

 

 

I am also keen on doing something a bit brasher with a lot of contrast, so my next pyrogrphy project is going to be a couple of large poppies that almost fill the frame that I have chosen for it. So far I have made up a board with a piece of MDF faced with beech veneer and I have drawn the outline of the poppies on it.

At the moment it looks like a template for a stained glass window but I'm hoping that by the time I've done the pyrography work it will come to life. If you would like to see the finished article please come back for my next post.

By the way, if you are wondering how I'm getting on with the oil paints that I had for my birthday. All I can say is that progress is slow, but I'm hoping to give it a good go this week.

Hare Again

Hi All,
I said last week that I was going to do another pyrography hare with the contours, so here it is.

I like the way it turned out and the simplicity of it. The phrase, 'sometimes less is more' is pretty well worn, but in this case it seems to fit. I got the frame from a charity shop and used that to size the piece of white birch veneer that I was going to do the pyrography on. This was then ironed onto a piece of MDF.

I'm still not sure about using MDF because of the health implication if one inhales the dust when working with it. The only solution I have is to do any cutting and sanding outside and hopefully the dust will get lost on the wind.

Anyway, after I'd used my pyrography iron to burn the outline of the hare, I drew the contours on freehand with a pencil. These were then subsequently burnt. Care needs to be taken when going around the curves and I find that it is best to do several short marks rather then trying to burn a long line in one go. Even when using veneer the grain of the wood can easily make the tip of a pyrography iron go off course and if two contour lines end up touching it ruins the whole effect.

The direction of the grain in a piece of wood needs to be taken into account when doing any pyrography work. I find that it is easy to maintain a straight line when burning a line that is 90 degrees to the grain, but keeping that line straight becomes increasingly difficult as I move around to going with the grain.

Whilst we are talking about grain, I also think that consideration should be given to matching the direction of the grain to the subject you are working on. For example, because the hare is running, I think it makes sense to have it going with the grain. It wouldn't work as well with the grain going the other way. If on the other hand I was to do a picture of a tree or a flower, I'd want the grain to go with the direction of growth so that it didn't jar the eye.

I'm not sure what my next project will be, but I will let you know soon. By the way, if anybody is interested, the hare is for sale on Folksy at a reasonable price.

Pyrography Hare

Hi all,
I'm pleased to tell you that I managed to do a bit of pyrography this week. My oil paints have also arrived along with me 62nd birthday, so be prepared to see my first foray into that medium in a few posts time.

Right, back to the pyrography. While I'm out and about I keep my eyes open for wooden items that could be suitable for some pyrography  treatment and find they come in handy. Earlier in the week, I was looking at a pencil box that I bought and, because of it's long thin shape, I was wondering what I could possible pyrograph onto it.
Anyway, I went back to a drawing of some hares that I'd done a couple of months ago on a big box and decided to use one of them. Obviously, these would be too big for the small pencil box, so I located the file on my computer and removed the hare at the back.

I then re sized the image of the single hare to fit the pencil box I was going to use. After transferring the image, I burnt in the outline with my pyrography iron, but didn't bother with any shading. I'd had in my mind for a while to do something different, so I drew some contour lines on the hare that I thought would loosely describe it's form and burnt them in. To make it stand out on the box, I then gave the hare a coat of  medium oak gloss varnish. I was careful not to put any of the colour on to the hare's eye because I wanted that to provide a highlight. Once oak varnish was dry, the whole box was given two more coats of clear gloss varnish to protect it. Here is the finished article.

I think it looks very good and I have decided to do a larger version on a piece of white beech veneer. I will let you see that in my next post if I get chance to do it.

Birthday Painting

Hi All,
I've got a confession to make. This week I haven't managed to do any pyrography at all, so I haven't got anything to show you. I apologise for this and here's my pathetic excuse. I have just finished writing another book and the pressure is on to get it edited and published.

I promised myself I'd have it finished before my next birthday, which will be upon me again in a couple of days. I can hardly believe that I will be only three years away from retirement and I am looking forward to that. Not the getting old bit, but to get back some of the money I've paid in over the years. I think it will seem very odd to be getting money for nothing, but there again I have paid my dues so I will deserve every penny.

Getting back to birthdays, my wife decided to do me a painting for my birthday and because she was so excited about the results I had it a week early. It is now framed and hanging on the wall in the lounge. I said I wanted a landscape with a river running through it and that is what I got.

You can see the painting below and I think it is brilliant.


In fact, the painting has inspired me to have a go at oil painting. The painting you can see is done in acrylics, but I've tried them and find the quick drying times to be a bit of a bind.

Don't worry, I won't be giving up on the pyrography, but every now and again I just long to use some colour. I am hoping that what I have learnt about the use of tone in my pyrography work can be transferred to oil painting.

It is also interesting that when producing some of my pyrography work I can't help but wonder how it would look in full colour. Anyway, besides the painting, my wife has done for me, she is also buying me enough oil painting stuff to get me cracking and I can't wait.

In my next post I promise to have a piece of pyrography finished and look forward to sharing it with you.

Feeling Fruity

Hi all, I don't know what's happened to the weather, but I am hoping for something warmer soon. We are just entering the last week of March and our garden looks like Finland. A couple of days ago, I had some lovely daffodils and primroses in flower, but now they've been flattened. Here's a picture I took earlier today.

The only good thing about cold weather is that it gives one an opportunity to indulge in ones indoor passions and, despite spending a lot of time writing the finishing chapters to my latest book, I managed to do a little pyrography.

This pyrography project involved drawing and then burning a piece of fruit. I choose an apple because I wanted to see if I could capture the sheen on the skin.

I went about it as follows.

First, I begged a photo frame that I would use on the finished article from my wife, who it has to be said, is a walking cornucopia. I used the frame to size and cut out a piece of MDF and a piece of beech veneer. I then ironed the veneer onto the MDF and left it for twenty four hours to make sure the glue had dried.

Next, I drew an apple by hand and then set about the burning process. Rendering an image of an apple with nothing to determine the value of tone, but the heat from the pyrography iron, takes a lot of patience. If you are thinking of having a go at an apple, please feel free to use my image. However, there is one thing you mustn't do, and that is to outline the apple first. If you put a line around the fruit you will ruin the illusion.

I defined the outside edge of the apple with the back of my spoon tip and used this on a very low temperature setting. Besides the stalk, which can be outlined first, the rest of the image is just shading and this is where you need patience. You also need to make sure that all shading is done in line with the natural shape of the apple because this is what gives the drawing it's form. Start light, but then go darker and darker, but be careful not to lose your highlights.

I liked the finished result and it looks great in the frame supplied by my wife.

Obviously the apple would look strange if I left it dangling in mid air, so I did an abstract effect underneath it to provide another point of interest. If anybody is interested in buying the apple it can be found in my shop on Folksy.com

Next week, I hope to share with you a new image that I have in mind for the top of a pencil box and I'm hoping for warmer weather.