[Pyrographer]

Originally Posted by Irish

Good one Guys!

Neda, I know you think your joking but (B.ehold the U.ltimate T.ruth) I often am coming onto the computer and net around 2:30 EST to start my day's work. And, that means I am often passing Mike in the hall as he heads to bed after having held down the 7 PM to 2 AM shift.

By 9 AM all whosits can be breaking out here with the two sites and by noon Mike is ready to take over the 'puter, by 2pm I have to have the orders pulled so he can head to the Office.

So the only time that I can really play, create and just make a horrendous mess all over my work table can be the early hours before dawn. Ya kno' typing this reminds me that I once told someone that if they really wanted to do wood carving DON'T go into the wood carving business.

I went to college to study fine arts so that I wouldn't end up being a secretary, phone receptionist, bookkeeper, filer, general office worker and the one that is responsible for filling all the empty coffee cups. I spent today answering the phone, doing the books, filing the weekends paperwork and making pot after pot of coffee!!!!

Sigh - see the back of hand against my forehead.

Susan

Susan

Ok, so you have something to read at 2 am It will be about midnight here!!!

I had to laugh at your last comment. My parents wanted me to become an artist and paid for me to take classes at Paier School of Art (later Paier college of art) when I was a kid. I decided I loved painting but I wanted a real job where I'd get paid rather than starve. Like you, I didn't want to become a secretary, etc so I went to college and got all my degrees then what happens when I retire. Yup, same as you. I now answer the phone, do the bookkeeping, filing, fill orders, etc. Gosh what is wrong with this picture???? Perhaps one of these days I'll get back to my 3 woodburning projects that are partially started and still sitting there calling out to me. I REALLY need to because I have a big art show coming up in November and I need to have something to bring with me

I really have to add that part of my problem lately has been that we are still getting organized in the house...well mostly in my office, studio and Al's workshop. I think my part is finally done so I can get on with the fun stuff of burning.

Nedra

[BRIAN D]

Ha! Ha! Thats what you get for being in bussiness, and as they say with all your money! Kidding aside, Excellent JOB! Great Day! Brian D.

[Irish]

Step 25: I think I will post the final photo of this series of photos so that you can see where we are headed. I have worked the right hand leaf to it's middle tonal values. Just as with the left leaf I don't want to bring it up to it's full darkness until I have worked a little in each and every element of the design.

Throughout the last series of posting and these posting we are working to add the shading that will curve and roll the leaf sections between the leaf veins.

Our oak leaves are not curved as a whole unit but instead appear buckled or wavy between each of the vein areas. Many of the leaf sections will have highlight areas, mid-tone areas and darker areas to create that buckling
effect.

Step 26: I am starting with a temp setting of 5, the writing tip and a writing position. I am using a tight random doodle stroke. I wanted to darken the mapping shadows of the right hand leaf slightly to push the color down to
match the tuck shadows of the left leaf.

Step 27: Once the tucked shadows are darker I have moved into the interior area of the leaf on it's left side. This leaf will be just a little darker in overall value then the other one so I am not leaving any unburned highlight
areas.

Looking at the pattern the right hand leaf is the deepest element in the pattern. The stem that connects the leaf to the branch lies behind that branch. By taking the entire leaf into a tonal value a touch deeper then the left leaf I can push it farther into the background.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 28: I have carried that overall toning into the right side of the leave. I made a note to myself on this step about how to control your color besides for turning up or down the temp setting ... so ... You can burn on one setting, as our temp setting 5 and achieve lighter or darker tones in several ways.

1. Your pace or duration of movement can change the color tone. Which simply means that if you move the pen tip quickly you get pale tones but if you slow down your movement you get darker tones.

2. Layers, that's what we have been working on to develop the shadows in the leaves. The more layers you add the darker the area becomes. Less layers mean a paler tone.

3. The tightness or looseness of the stroke will change the color tone value. So by making the random doodle strokes more closely packed you are adding more lines of color and therefore darkening the area. Open or lose doodles will give you a paler tone.

4. The pen and hand position also change the color value of an area. When the pen tip is held in the writing position you have more metal to the wood so you get a slightly wider line. Wider lines, like packed strokes, make a
darker tone. By raising the tip up into the paint brush position you are now standing on the tip's point. This makes a finer line and so a lighter tone.

“Why go through all that layer work, Susan, when all I have to do is just turn up the temp?”

Good question!!! Because what you burn is permanent. Oh, you can grab a fine sheet of sand paper to lighten an area but you destroy the surface texture in that area. When you go to add detailing or other layers to that sanded area it will take on a different appearance then the non-sanded parts of your design. You or (at least in my experience) I often have made the problem area worst not better.

“OK, so I don’t want to burn in a mistake, but can’t I just turn the temp up a bit?”

Yes, just go slowly so that you have control of the tonal value. If you have notices I have repeated several times through this that I am not working my values up to their deepest coloring yet because since there is little or no
burning in other areas of the pattern I don’t know what that deepest value is until those areas are worked. The strength of the highlight or dark shadows of one area are dependent on other areas in the design.

So if I go too dark now I may have to darken many other places to keep the design in balance. I may end up with a design that had lots of middle tones, deep tones and black tones but almost not cream and coffee, beige or tan
coloring.

It is so much easier, for me, to add more burning later then get rid of or adjust to too much burning.

Step 29: It's time for me to get rid of those dark pencil lines in my leave before I work down the center. This time I actually got up off of my bottom and went and fetched a "proper" white artist eraser. Sorry, I know the
word eraser is miss-spelled in the photo caption.

Step 30: I included this photo so that you can see even very pale tones can be seen in a burning. Look above the eraser work to how the unburned veins stand out against the light burning of the right side of the leaf.

Step 31: I am beginning the extra shadow or interior shadows of this leaf. I did turn the temp setting back down to 4 to do this step so that I could tightly pack the random doodle strokes, fill the area, without going to dark.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 32: I cranked the temp setting back up to 5 and have added the dark shadow allowing just a thin edge of the burning in step 31 to show.

Step 32A: Here's a close up. You can see the tight packed random doodles on temp setting 4 and the darker burning on temp setting 5.

Step 33: I have worked both sides of the leaf to add the inner shadows and edge shadows. Here I am working on the leaf tip that is above the branch in the design. I have lifted my hand into the paint brush position so that I
could run a fine line along the branch edge.

Step 34: Once the leaf tip above the branch was complete I wanted to blend this leaf with several light layers of random doodles working over everything except the veins. Still at temp setting 5, writing position, writing tip and random doodles ... tired of this yet

Step 35: Here's a quick check of where we are. You can compare the two leaves.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 36 I still want the right leaf just a tad darker then the left so I decided to add a couple more overall layers. You can see that the entire leaf, except the veins, is taking on a beige coloring.

Step 37: My veins need to have some shading work to make them move or bend with the leaf. But first I wanted to emphasis a few of the tight corners of the leaf where the veins intersect. I added a few detailing lines along the
long vein lines also - not a full outlining, just a few strokes here and there.

Step 37A; Here's a close up.

Step 38: ????? I have no idea where that photo went or what it was of or if I am just off my numbering.

Step 39: I have added a little light mid-tone shading to the stem where it tucks under the branch on both sides of that stem.

Susan

[Irish]

Steps 40a, 40b, and 40c are just close ups of tonight's work.

Susan

[Irish]

A couple more random doodle thoughts here and that is about birch plywood.

There are many great woods on which to woodburn – basswood, poplar and birch are common favorites. I just happen to love birth plywood. Birch is a hardwood that can have very distinct grain lines and grain pattern.
Plus you can get birch plywood that includes heartwood stains that are a rich creamy red coloring. As you work birch you will see that the grain lines can become enhanced with the burning.

Birch burning fall into the orange-brown or red-brown coloring range. Because of the hardness of the birch my color range tends towards the extremely pale tones up to a chocolate or chocolate red coloring. It can be most difficult
to get an actual black tone in the burning. Also, because it is a hard surface the layer work tends to develop slowly.

Where basswood might take one or two light layers and poplar two or three with birch I might need four to six layers to bring up the desired tone.

Basswood, though considered a hardwood, is much softer and has almost no grain lines. It is also a very pale or white colored wood. Featureless is often the term used to describe basswood. Basswood burns easily and quickly, your tonal values will develop with a lot fewer layers then you would need on basswood.

In my experience basswood burns tend to the gray-brown tones. You can get dramatic blacks but the pale creamy colors must be worked carefully. Now, I will note here that I do little burning on basswood and it is just a real
quirk of mine … as a wood carver if the basswood is clear and clean enough for burning I have a real hard time not putting it into my carving pile! If it’s not clear or clean as you do sometime get pitchy or spongy basswood I
definitely put it into my carving pile because it’s just not good enough to waste my time burning.

Poplar is a wood right in the middle of basswood and birch for wood color, wood hardness and grain. It is a very white wood with just no grain appearance at all. I consider poplar an ‘unpainted white canvas’. You do have more control with this wood in the palest of tones then basswood and can also reach those beautiful black colors. The tonal values tend toward the yellow-brown color range.

Poplar is often considered a secondary wood for wood furniture. You find it as the drawer sides and backs or as support structure inside your chest of drawers. Since it is not an extremely hard wood or extremely soft wood you
can use your skews and shaders to create actual depth work within a burning.

As you burn along an edge of an element you actual push-drop-lower the physical level of the wood. So with poplar you not only burn but you also add physical dimension to your work. Basswood will also do this.

I believe that Nedra’s favorite wood is poplar and the very features above allows her to work with her portraits and her shader tip to create smooth seamless color gradients. (Maybe she will pipe in here with a few notes about working poplar?!?) In contrast, the hardness and grain lines of birch are the features that make my working with a skew or shader muddy and speckled in appearance.

So what technique or style of burning you chose can determine what wood you want to burn.

So – back to birch - If birch is harder to burn, needs more layer, has definite grain lines and even heartwood stains why would I want to use it. Because the hardness helps me control the coloring, I don’t get accidental darks and I can get extremely pale tones that I could not get in other woods.

Also as a hardwood I can work on 3 ply 1/8” plywood without the board warping because of the heat stress. That makes birch very easy to frame as a finished artwork later no worries about fitting frames to ¼” – ¾” boards.

As for the grain, I love it. I love grain and I love it showing through the wood burning. Personally even in the most complex drawings I don’t want to hide or diminish the simply fact that this is a WOOD burning. Personally if I
want a white or featureless burning canvas I am going to grab a piece of 140 lb 100% rag content water color paper ….

But that’s just my preference, hopefully someone else or maybe many someone elses will chip in here about their favorite wood surface.

OK … enough random doodlings of the mind. Nope! One more ... the goldfish and owl were burned using a variable temperature setting burner and the NY Fireman was done with a one setting (Walnut Hollow) tool.

As it has just hit 4AM here I'm off to bed. See ya in the mornin'.

Susan

Oh ... if you don' mind I will do my spell checking and editing in the morning. If you do mind I will still be doing my spell checking and editing in the morning.

[WOODIE13]

I like just about any, oak, poplar, sassafrass, cedar, cherry, and even pine (just gets challenging working against the hard and soft grain.

Working on a goose on a pine box right now, will post some pics of if shortly.

[WOODIE13]

Here is the goose box I been fooling with my Colwood and the two tips I used to do it.