[Woodartist]

http://carvertools.com/customer.htm#Q7 has a lot of useful info and also points to the "wattage myth," http://carvertools.com/wattage.htm

The general information seems OK, but I haven't seen a very good technical article that really does a scientific analysis of burners. None address ambient temperature changes, air, etc. Good project for some beginner EE student.

[Woodartist]

AL: Do you know if the primary or secondary was burned out on the transformer?? What type of transformer did you use? If you want to PM me a schematic I can take a look at the design....along with a parts list.

[Irish]

Well, while the guys have been dicussing wattage and volts I have been trying to do a little burning. I didn't get very far as I got sort of off track with a little 'art class 101' that we can talk about here.

Step 11: This is a quick photo of aluminum oxide for cleaning my tips. As was noted earlier I do use a strop but sometimes want to work the powder down into the tool's loop area. Clean off the oxide powder with a clean cloth ... No one was watching as I did that step by swiping it across the knee of my blue jeans ... right?

Step 12: I took the scans of the acorns that I stole last night and rearranged them into something close to our design. This will give us a reference photo.

Then I took the acorns back outside, under the old oak tree and left them for that squirrel (I don't want HiHo worrying about some poor starving squirrel.)

Now, I do not want to get into copyright issues on this thread so I will keep this part very general. You can use copyrighted material and photos in your art as reference photos when the finished piece or project will be for personal use.

This means that if you are wood burning a white tail deer it is very OK to go browse the net to find photos of deer. It's OK to print those photos off and then use them to determine how shadows, highlights, muscle structure, that sort of thing works in the animal.

It's not OK to slap a piece of tracing paper on top of it, make an exact pattern, burn it exactly and then put either the pattern or the burning up for sale as 'original' artwork. Nor is it OK to take those photos to your local wood burning class or wood burning club and pass them out as give aways.

You can see that our reference photo is not an exact match to our design but it will give us some guidelines for where the shadows and highlights will be in our burning.

I like to print my reference material on photo copy quality paper on a Normal ink setting. This gives me a nice crisp clean photo from which to work. If you are working on this project you will want to print several copies. Then you can use one for reference and the others for notes as to what tips, temp setting and grip you used in what area.

I will be returning to these photos in a few minutes.

The reference photos are in #34.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 13: I want to darken the mapping work that we have already done just a little before I begin the shaping stage of work. I am still using the writing tip and the writing grip but I have moved my temperature setting up to 4 1/2.

You can see in the photos for steps 13, 14 and 15 that I have narrowed the area that I am now burning slightly. I don't want to cover up everything that I burned in the first mapping layers but I do want the edges, especially on the leaves where they tuck under to be a little darker.

I have stayed with my same texturing in each area, the random doodle in the acorn and leaves and the line texture in the cap. I have not worked a second mapping layer to the mouse or branch yet.

[Irish]

So far I have been doing mapping. Mapping for me is the most basic of light shading to determine what element is where within a design. I map those areas that I know are the outer edges of round objects like our acorn and acorn cap. I map areas that tuck under another area like the edges of our leaves. And I map areas like our baby mouse where his head is over his chest and his bottom rolls behind the acorn cap.

Mapping is my first thinking stage. It makes me consider the basic shape of an element and where it falls within relationship to the surrounding elements. I keep this work very pale in tone so that I can add other layers for the shadows right over the mapping work.

So by now I know we have two very flat elements - the two leaves. Those leaves are behind or under the acorn. The acorn is round and it is made up of two pieces - the cap and the nut. The mouse sits on to of the cap but his nose is not as foreward as the highlight on the nut and his bottom fall back to the leaves.

guide7.jpg and guide8.jpg - As I have been working the second layer of mapping I have been considering where I will be going next with this burning. So, I have a major decision to make at this time ... what am I going to do with the background.

I need to decide now!

If I want to leave the background area unburned, the original color of the wood then I will be using the blackest of tones within my design.

If I am going to burn the background, making it the darkest area of the design, I will need to plan that the darkest areas of the acorn, leaves and mouse will stop in the deeper mid-tones.

I don't want to burn one area of the design, let's say the outer edges of the acorn cap, into the black tones then burn the background black. I would lose the edge of the acorn. I also don't want to stop the design in the mid-tones and leave the background unburned. The finished design would look washed out or sun faded.

Sometimes this can be a very difficult decision but not today. Since I am doing this project to put the Colwood Detailer to its paces I already know that I want to try it through all of the setting temperatures which means a black background!

Susan

[Irish]

With any wood burning we bring with us our knowledge of the objects, light source and textures. For this project we are looking at an acorn with a baby mouse, two oak leaves and a branch. So what knowledge do I have of the elements?

1. The way this pattern is laid out the oak leaves and acorns are hanging from a branch. They are not lying on my table. So the actual background to our design is air.

2. Shadows are cast when an element is in direct line with the light source. For our pattern the light source is assumed to be the sun and I am assuming the sun is almost over head of the acorn. (see direct_light.jpg) So where the sun strikes an element that element creates a shadow.

3. Shadows fall onto other objects, that is when we can see shadows. So our acorn will create or cast a shadow onto the leaves behind it. Our mouse will cast a shadow onto both the leaves and the acorn cap. But because our leaves and branch are hanging in air they have nothing on which to cast a shadow. So the leaves will have no shadow in the background areas.

4. Where the light strikes an element or object it creates a highlight. This is called a direct light source highlight. (see the direct_light.jpg) For our design the most obvious direct light highlights are on the center of the acorn, the center of the cap, the top of the branch and the outer edges of the leaves. For our mouse it will be his back, ear tips and the top of his head.

5. As you move away from that highlight the element becomes gradually darker in tonal value. So the areas surrounding a highlight are light mid-tones. Those a little farther away would be in the middle range, those coming near the edge will be dark mid-tones. The furthest areas away will be the darkest tones.

So ... I have a problem. If the outer edges of the acorn should be my darkest tones and my background is going to be a dark tone how do I distinguish one area from another? How do I do both areas dark without losing the acorn's outer edges in the blackness of the background?

I use reflected light! Light, bless its little heart, bounces. You can really see a good example of reflected light along the outer edge of the scanned acorn (reflected_light.jpg). The light from my scanner left a direct light highlight on the center of the acorn but it also hit the glass on my scanner then bounced onto the outer edges of the acorn. Notice the thin paler area there.

I can use that reflected light to keep a thin sliver of acorn edge into the paler mid-tones and separate the acorn from the black background. Light reflects or bounces off of anything it hits so in our pattern that means it could be coming from the leaves or branch.

I can also use that reflected light idea to separate the mouse's bottom from the dark area in the leaves when I begin working on him.

(Edited Oct. 2, 2007 - If you are following the WIP for photos and printing the next step is found on page 6 post #54. I do hope you will come back and take time to read the great info in between these steps.)

Susan

[Irish]

Do I have everyone totally confused ???? s anyone ????

Susan

[mikeg]

No questions yet, but I do have an observation.

WOW!! I never realized how much knowledge and thought goes into a burning!

Thanks for sharing!
mikeg

[Woodartist]

Sorry about the watts and volts digression Susan.

What you have written is very clear, concise, and easy to understand. No questions yet. Even the art 01 refresher was good

[Irish]

Bill! No apologizes! I am very interested in the answers and still waiting for an email reply myself. I am just too much of an idjit when it comes to such stuff to participate

Does anyone have a used copy of Wattage for Dummies they want to sell?

Susan