Why use a Wood burner

[K. Ellenburg]

Why do some carvers use a wood burner to bring out detail, when the detail that is brought out by using it is painted over any way? This may not be the right place to post this question but it is a beginner question.

[Claude]

One reason is that it helps keep the watered-down acrylic paints from spreading into an area they're not supposed to be in. Another is that it adds a shadowed effect to crevices or other areas you want darker. Granted, if you're using opaque paints instead of washes, it doesn't really matter...but if that's the case, you might as well be painting cast resin instead of wood, as no one could tell the difference.

Lynn is one of the experts on using wood burners before painting. If you look through his blog site http://www.outwestwoodcarving.blogspot.com/ and look at some of his finishing work, you can easily see why he uses the wood burner...

Claude

[K. Ellenburg]

Well that may be why I didnt see or understand why, because I have painted a lot of resin figures, and I have seen Lynn's work and noticed how he uses the wood burner. I always paint highlights, high highlights, shadow and dark shadow using artist oils using the halo method of the way light falls on a figure and have never tried any other type of paint and I have always made a dark wash for certain details, so the wood burner eliminates the need for a dark wash?

[AlArchie]

Also, for some extremely fine detail such as feathers, the vanes on fish fins, scales and the like, the burner can do a better job than carving tools. I manage to do the fins on my fish with a fine "V" tool while others use a burner. Scales could also be done with a gouge, I suppose, but I burn them in. It's an extremely tetious repetitive job, and the burner simplifies the process.

As Claude mentioned, I use a burner to outline areas on relief carving I plan on coloring with a wash as it contains the colors to the proper areas.

Al

[Donna_T]

Kevin,
I think that the hardest parts of carving is the painting. The transition you make from a beginner to more developed carver often has as much to do with the carving techniques you learn as the painting/finishing finish. WHen I first started carving, I painted everything with paint right out of the tube/bottle. I was used to painting ceramics and you sometimes put 2-3 coats on, full strength. And as Claude said, you might as well be painting ceramics if you cover your carving with thick oil or acryllic coats that never let any of the wood show through.

THen I progressed to diluting the paint by about 50% and only putting on 1-2 coats. Sometimes I antiqued over it or used the tinted BLO to "age" the carving. When I'm painting a decoy, I undercoat with a thin layer of Gesso to give me a clear pallet on which to paint, without filling up the detail and wood burning lines of feathers.

Then I progressed to where I thin paint down to a 4/1 ratio of water &/or flow medium combination and I may have some areas that just have one coat for a faint "tint" of color and other areas may have 3-4 layers built up for more color, but the wood still faintly shows through.

Even when I sand carvings (other than birds and fish) I leave carving marks so they can show through the paint. The part of a carving that makes it look realistic, is the shadows and shading variations.

Of course, that's just my opinion and experience.

Donna T

[K. Ellenburg]

This is what I like about this new hobby, so much to learn its refreshing to learn something new. I think its neat to see how you guys paint with washes as thin as water but still get amazing results and the wood burner stopping the wash from crossing over to areas that are a different color, pretty neat.

[squbrigg]

I use a burner to accent carvings, usually those that aren't to be painted. I find them great to apply detail that may be too small to carve, but yet you'd still like to have. You can also creat some super effects with shading and texture with a burning tool that would not be as effective otherwise.

Bob