Pyrography 101 tutorials

[Pyrographer]

For those of you who are new to pyrography and interested I have some tutorials on my website and just updated some of it yesterday with more information on safety.

If you are interested it's at: http://nedraspyrography.com
Click on the link for "Pyrography 101" and there are several tutorials. For those of you who have already perused them, the ones I updated are "tips n tricks" and "Material and safety".

Enjoy! Bouncing S

Nedra

[Mottles]

Thumbs Up Good Job Nedra!
Kathy

[Sharynideas]

Thanks for pointing out your help pages. There's a lot of very valuable information there. Wish I'd read through it before I started.

[Pyrographer]

The tutorials are fairly new. I started working on them a long time ago but never had time to do anything with them until I had surgery in November. I was home for 6 weeks recouperating so once I had the ok from the doctor to be sitting up I started working on them. I think I finally got them published in sometime in December but have updated them several times since then. I extracted some of the information from my books but the books are more comprehensive.

My goal was to hit people before they start burning so perhaps they can get off to the right start. Often times by the time they buy books they have already been burning and have become frustrated. Maybe the tutorials will help!Matrix

[victorygirl]

Hi I am still a relative newbe to pyrography but am a very quick learner so am finding these posts extremely informative especially about the use of photos and manipulating them for pyrographical use. thanks

[schooner]

Originally Posted by Pyrographer

For those of you who are new to pyrography and interested I have some tutorials on my website and just updated some of it yesterday with more information on safety.

If you are interested it's at: Gourd, Pyrography and Woodcarving Art and Supplies
Click on the link for "Pyrography 101" and there are several tutorials. For those of you who have already perused them, the ones I updated are "tips n tricks" and "Material and safety".

Enjoy! Bouncing S

Nedra

Hi Nedra ( Newbie Here )

Got some questions please.

What is the best way to do this as far as painting my carving(s)

Should I paint first and burn over my paint wash

Or should I burn first and then paint and then paint my carving(s)

When I burn first and then paint over the burn the burn looses its sharpness.
But when I paint first and then burn I get my pen of clog-up with the water color paint.

Nedra how woooood you handle painting a carving and burning

[Pyrographer]

Originally Posted by schooner

Hi Nedra ( Newbie Here )

Got some questions please.

What is the best way to do this as far as painting my carving(s)

Should I paint first and burn over my paint wash

Or should I burn first and then paint and then paint my carving(s)

When I burn first and then paint over the burn the burn looses its sharpness.
But when I paint first and then burn I get my pen of clog-up with the water color paint.

Nedra how woooood you handle painting a carving and burning

Schooner, as I state in my tutorials NEVER burn over anything but raw unfinished, unstained and unpainted surfaces. I don't usually paint my burnings (except gourds) but if I am painting I do not paint over burned areas. As you are seeing you can ruin your pens, not to mention get sick from burning through paint....maybe not now but down the road.

I continue to get calls from people thanking me for taking such a strong stand on material safety when burning on my tutorials. Most recent from someone who suffered permanent brain damage over 30 years later after exposure. He isn't a customer or anything just someone who was surfing for a hobby and found my site and the tutorials. We talked for a very long time and I have to admit that I was quite touched by his call and listening to his story.

Nedra

[Irish]

Originally Posted by schooner

Hi Nedra ( Newbie Here )

When I burn first and then paint over the burn the burn looses its sharpness.
But when I paint first and then burn I get my pen of clog-up with the water color paint.

Schooner ... I agree totally with Nedra in not burnig over any paint, wood stain or finishing product. Do your burning directly to the wood then add any coloring and finishing to the project.

If you are using watercolors over your burnings and you are losing the crisp tones of the burning you most likely are using your watercolors to thick or you are using craft quality paints instead of artist quality paints.

Craft quality paints, acrylics and colored pencils often have 'cheap' additives in them that keep the cost of manufacturing down. Those same additives also tend to cause your colors to have a semi-opaque or cloudy look to them.

As an example the color pencil sets that you buy at the office supply store or drug store have chalk in them where artist quality pencils are wax based. The wax is more expensive but also transparent so when applied to your wood burnings you get clean transparent colors instead of chalky build-up.

Artist acrylics in the primary colors - cadium red medium, ultramarine blue and cadmium yellow - are pure color tones that are extremely transparent. In craft colors the colors that come in the same name have a white-gray color base to them. They are much more opaque. Even when you add water to craft quality paints they have a clouding effect ... that's because you are only thinning down the white-gray base not removing it. Think of thinning milk with water ... even thinned it still is 'milky"!

With artist quality watercolors you can really thin the color down. I usually do a simple test ... I thin my colors with water in a small watercolor tray which has a series of small divided pans. Then I load my brush and paint several strokes over a sheet of newspaper. I can tell how transparent the color has become by how well I can read the newsprint. If the print becomes cloudy from the color I need to add more water to my mix.

Several extremely thin coats of artist quality watercolors will develop a rich color tone with no clouding or milky look.

Artist quality colors do cost more ... but what have you lost in cost by ruining even one good woodburning by using the cheaper craft paints?

Susan

[Pyrographer]

Susan is right on. Personally I don't use water color paint. I used to paint with oils (on canvas not wood) but developed an allergy to linseed oil. I switched to acrylics and many years ago discovered Jo Sonja. I love the product and use it now on my gourds although I did use some of it on one of my maple burl burnings this year and loved the effect. I actually used just a base color and mixed in Generation Green Colorant to create my own color and thinned it so it was transparent. The beautiful swirling of the burl showed through creating the pattern on the bandana's.

Nedra

[Michele]

Greetings, I am another newbie and am hoping for some advice on tools. I have a Black and Decker 2 temp (900 degrees max) burner with the standard solid tips. I am wondering if I need the wire tip style burner instead?
And (forgive my ignorance) what is the difference between a "fixed" tip burner and the other type??

Thanks for any help you can give!
Michele