[Irish]

YES! Good Lady, That one is a keeper!

The wing now just pops forward of the body and that added line in the tail give him the final detail. Wonderful! Now - Rush to the nearest frame shop and get that pheasant properly hung on your wall.

Isn't Dover a treasure trove ... don't know how many Dover's I have stuffed into my book shelves.

Susan

[Mottles]

Susan, thank you for your excellent suggestions and for writing the article on woodburning in the WCI. I read it over several times to make sure I understood the technique. Working from dark values to the lightest value works for me readily. I started painting with oils and we are taught to work from dark to light (big help). Hope you will be doing more articles I loved the old car really nice work. I have two paintings I did of old cars from a for want of a better word Ghost Town in California. After I saw your car I thought of how terrific they'd look woodburned. Oh boy I think I'm hooked! LOL
Kathy

[Irish]

Kathy,

When plotting out my tonal values on the photo or design I work dark to light ... not on the actual burning though. I find that I can easily pick out the very darkest area of a photo. Then I can find the next darkest. On really complicated photos I will sometimes work back and forth ... what's the darkest and what's the whitest ... then work towards the middle.

Another EASY trick is to open your photo in a graphics program. Gray scale the image then reduce the image to 16 colors (shades of gray). The images below are from a still life that I set up and intend one day to burn. I chose all white toned objects, put them in a shadow box, focused my light source then took the pic. The second image is the gray scale and the third is the 16 color gray scale. Notice the pitcher and candle cup especially and see how the 16 color maps out the changes so wonderfully. Now, how'w that for cheating

When I am burning I work from the background towards the foreground. I find it easier to burn the foreground over the background then to try and cut around individual areas in the design. I also work up the values very slowly by burning light/pale layers then adding more burning, and more as needed. So the black tones are the last to go into the work. For me it's so much easier to add more as needed. This also lets me work the entire design as one unit instead of different areas.

A small round gouge is just great for lifting fine lines out of an area that becomes to dark. You can lightly shave off the tip layer of the birch, do a little sanding and then re-burn if you need too!

Susan

[Mottles]

Originally Posted by Irish

Kathy,

When plotting out my tonal values on the photo or design I work dark to light ... not on the actual burning though. I find that I can easily pick out the very darkest area of a photo. Then I can find the next darkest. On really complicated photos I will sometimes work back and forth ... what's the darkest and what's the whitest ... then work towards the middle.

Another EASY trick is to open your photo in a graphics program. Gray scale the image then reduce the image to 16 colors (shades of gray). The images below are from a still life that I set up and intend one day to burn. I chose all white toned objects, put them in a shadow box, focused my light source then took the pic. The second image is the gray scale and the third is the 16 color gray scale. Notice the pitcher and candle cup especially and see how the 16 color maps out the changes so wonderfully. Now, how'w that for cheating

When I am burning I work from the background towards the foreground. I find it easier to burn the foreground over the background then to try and cut around individual areas in the design. I also work up the values very slowly by burning light/pale layers then adding more burning, and more as needed. So the black tones are the last to go into the work. For me it's so much easier to add more as needed. This also lets me work the entire design as one unit instead of different areas.

A small round gouge is just great for lifting fine lines out of an area that becomes to dark. You can lightly shave off the tip layer of the birch, do a little sanding and then re-burn if you need too!

Susan

Hi Susan:
Thank you, so much good information and interestly not unlike preparing for a still life in painting. I knew about using a photo program to take your color phote to gray scale and have done it many times. I have two adult students who I'm teaching oil painting and when they bring we a color photo they want to paint from I scan it to gray scale. As you have mentioned getting the color out just makes everything clearer doesn't it. Also it's like turning a light bulb on all of a sudden they understand what you mean when you say gray scale. Or color value in a painting and how to get it!
I love the tip about using the round gouge to reclaim fine lines that become to dark. I had been wondering how I might lift an area or line if it became to dark.
Wonderful visuals and your three still life examples displaying all the dark to very lightest values. I was studying the pitcher the transition from one value to the next looks like it might be a little tricky. But I have no doubt that you will take it on and have a successful work. I hope when you do you will share your progress with us. By the way excellent composition!
Kathy

[Irish]

Hey Kathy,

Now, oil painting is totally off subject for a carving forum but I still have a passion for oils. I think with every other form of art there is that terrifying moment when you have to make the first cut or put down the first brush stroke and spoil forever the clean fresh canvas or wood block. But with oils that moment is pure fun. I was taught a mix of ochre/cobalt/umber mud for an wash over the entire canvas then turp/oil to lift out the image so you end up with a sepia painting. Maybe thats the connection between wood burning and oils for some of us artists. Wood burning goes right back to that sepia work!!! With oils it can be very hard for me to cover up that sepia so that I can move on to the color.

Now, I know that there are many styles of wood burning and each of us have our own preferred method. For me, as I noted earlier, I seldom use the "shader" tip to create my shading. This tip may work wonderfully for other but in my hands the burning ends up just a little blotchy or mottled. I don't get enough control over the coloring or over how the shader tones the changes in the grain and density of the wood.

So I much prefer to use a cross-hatching technique with the 'writing' tool. Lots of fine lines and lots of layers will gradually build up the tones. So if you apply the images below to the changes in the pitcher it really shouldn't be that hard ... it's just going to take FOREVER to burn all those cross hatch lines!

I would love to see one of your oils (maybe the Admin wouldn't object since we are talking about values versus color here ) so posting one WOULD be on subject.

Susan

PS ... In editing I forgot to note that the sample cross hatch is only half way to black, so there are about six to seven more tonal values that can be delevoped for that strip.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

You know, pheasant on birch doesn't sound anywhere near as appetizing as pheasant under glass!

[Mottles]

Hi Susan: You've made some good points and some really good explainations on how you create your woodburns. I'm learning a lot and will put into use the tools you've given us. I love our discussion on gray values because it does relate to woodburning 3D designs into our work. I brought up oil painting because along with other mediums some rules apply to woodburning also. Especially if you are attempting to protray a realistic landscape, still life or portrait. I'd be pleased to show one of my oil paintings (both color and gray scale verison). I'll find a good example and put on onto my website for folks to see it there if they are interested in what we are discussing. Then we won't get in trouble with the administration. Then folks that are interested can visit my web site--I could post when I have it uploaded to my site. What ya think?
As for making mud--tee hee Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber make a wonderful mud. I've used it for staining frames and of course it makes a beautiful black. The tube black is a very dull life-less color by it's self, but use this formula and you have a beautiful black. The wipe-out painting method (and the name for it escapes me right now) is used a lot in portrait painting. It describes the value/shape plains of the object without actually drawing/painting everything.
Same in woodburning and painting everyone has to take what they have learned and apply it in their own way. What ever works for each individual to get the end result.
Kathy

Hi David: Snork! Yummm does sound good! I haven't seen any pheasant around here--plenty of quail though.
Kathy

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I always used prussian blue and alizaron crimson to make a dark or black...but always more than one way to skin a cat!

[Irish]

Kathy, posting it to your site would be delightful and only a click away.

With sepia oil backgrounds you really aren't looking for black as much as mud color. By using all three - ochre, cobalt, and umber - and not mixing well you get a lot of color changes in the sepia work. It's all sort of put onto the palette then swished once or twice with a brush.

There's a quick example in a Dobie portrait. All most all of the work is sepia with just a few touches of rust to pull out his markings.

http://www.muttart.com/originals/orgindex.htm Homepage

http://www.muttart.com/originals/portrait.htm


Hi_Ho,

OK ... techniquically speaking, and as you probably already know ... there is no color hue of black in paint. It's all extremely dark tones of some other secondary color. So when you are adding Prussian and Alizarin you are doing exactly the right thing by making an very dark tone of purple! Your mix formula is a perfect example of making black and I will give it a try as it sounds like it would also make some beautiful gray tones as well !!!!!

I tend towards mixing cobalt and umber or ultramarine and Pthalo green!

Susan

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

using the two colors, I found that they are so sensitive that a minute amount more of one over the other will tint the final color either red side or blue side, so...after mixing, I always take just a touch and rub it on white paper to make sure, usually not after a red tint or blue tint(sometime but not often)at least not with this combination ...Dave