Winter Birdhouse Woodburning Tutorial

[BobD]

I've moved several posts that discuss the theory behind how to woodburn from this thread to this thread.

Shading and sepia values for woodburning

Many new members were having a difficult time finding the start of the actual tutorial on burning, so hopefully this will make it easier to navigate the thread.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at duncan@foxchapelpublishing.com

Bob Duncan
Technical Editor

[Irish]

Thank you Bob!

Well! Finally I am caught up with the editors at Fox Chapel and the last outstanding manuscript for this year is in their hands. That means that I finally have a little time to come play here on the forum.

I thought that I would do a burning that could be used as a Holiday present. So I chose a winter bird house scene with a nuthatch, gold finch, chicadee and acorn, berry and holly trim. That way it will be a fun decoration all winter long.

My goals in this tutorial are three fold.

1. I want to work with a simple line pattern and show how easy it is to determine where your shadows and shading go.

2. I want to do the burning on birch or mahogany plywood so that it will be easy to frame when finished.

3. I want to add coloring, either watercolors or colored pencil once the burning is completed.

Dec. 24, 2009 - The thread to the coloring steps is here: Watercolor Winter Bird House

So ... Please join in, post any questions along the way, share your own burnings as we work and lets have a little fun.

Susan

[Irish]

Fox Chapel has been kind enough to post full size images of the pattern and drawing that I will be using for this tutorial. You can find them at the link below.

These images are sized to print on a legal sized (8 1/2" x 14") sheet of printer paper. You can also resize them with a graphics of photo program to print on regular8 1/2" x 11" paper.

Save copies of each of these patterns on your hard drive. I usually recommend your Desktop so that they will be easy to find as we work through each step.

There are three images - the line pattern, a simplified line pattern and the drawing. You will need all three.

Once you have the patterns saved print a copy of the simplified line pattern so that you can work the shadowing steps with me.

shadows-pattern-small.jpg
shadows-simplepattern-small.jpg
shadows-pattern-drawing.jpg

Susan

Click on the link below for the free patterns to this tutorial - this takes you to Wood Carving Illustrated Free Carving Patterns section!

Wood Carving Illustrated - How To Magazine for Carvers

[Irish]

But I am not chosing any of my plywood pieces. I have a wonderful piece of barkwood basswood that I have been saving for something special and I believe this project is the one! It's 16" high with an 8" wide working area of planed wood.

I think the bark will make a perfect instant frame. So when the burning is done and the coloring added it will be very simple to hang.

The clean white coloring of the basswood is what I want for this project as I want to work in a wide variety of tonal values and I want to add color. The basswood will accept those very low temp burnings well and add no natural coloring to the colored pencils or watercolors that we will be adding later.

This particular piece of basswood came from Heinecke Wood Products at Heinecke Wood Products They are great people with which to work!

OK ... off to prep the board and resize my pattern. Back in a bit.

supplies-5.jpg
Susan

[Irish]

Step 1: Surface Preparation

I have sanded the top surface of my basswood board with several grits - 180, 220, 320 - to remove any saw marks and ridges. A pristine smooth surface means that my burner pen tips will not grab or skip over the small ridges or rough grain lines that you can find in any wood blank.

I have worked all three sandpaper grits with the grain of the wood. I do not want any cross grain scratches that can be caused by working perpendicular to the grain.

After the sanding was complete I dusted the wood surface very well and sent my old towel with the saw dust to the washing machine.

prep-1.jpg

Susan

(As I proof this section I am reminded of how many times in my younger days I would work on inferior surfaces ... rough drawing paper instead of rag content cotton watercolor or sketch paper, a canvas board instead of a good stretched linen canvas or a scrap piece of wood from the shop instead of a good wood blank. Then having worked my heart out and created something good I was so disappointed that I had done it on a junk surface.

I also remember how often I promised myself that I would "do it over" on a quality surface but never did. This does not mean that everything that you do needs to be done on an expensive premanufactured surface. It does mean that you should work on the best that you can and take time to really prepare that board well.

You NEVER KNOW when the next work will be your Master Piece!)

[Irish]

Step 2: The pattern, posted in the Free Carving Patterns sections here at Wood Carving Illustrated, is sized to print on a legal sized paper, 8 1/2" x 14". My board measures 16" high, so my pattern is just a touch small for my board.

I opened the pattern in a graphics program, I use Adobe Photoshop CS3. If you have a photo editing program you can probably resize your pattern with that. I resized the design to 16" then sliced that design into two pieces along the midway point of the pattern. I now can print those two images to create the larger sized pattern.

If you have questions on how to resize your image please refer to the Help section of your graphics or photo editing program.

prep-2.jpg

Susan

[Irish]

Step 3: I cut out the design then taped the two papers together. I have the design laid on the wood to find where I want to place the pattern.

Since this pattern has vertical lines in the slates of the bird house I grabbed my T-square ruler to insure that my pattern lines are perfectly vertical. Once I had the pattern positioned I used transparent tape along the top edge of the pattern to secure it to the wood.

I often will add a few reference pencil marks on the pattern and wood. These are little straight lines that go from the pattern paper onto the wood. If my tape loosens or the pattern paper moves during the tracing process I can easily use those reference lines to readjust the design.

At this point I can either slide a piece of graphite tracing paper under the design and do my tracing with an ink pen. I prefer a red pen so that I see exactly where I have and have not traced.

If you do not have graphite paper flip your pattern over so that the back is showing. Use a soft #2 pencil and rub the entire back with the pencil point until you have fully covered the paper with the pencil graphite. Now you can tape the design paper with the pencil rubbing to the wood and trace. The pressure from your ink pen will leave a pencil graphite drawing on your board.

I can check my progress by lifting the bottom edge of the pattern paper. I do not remove the tape until I am sure that I have traced every line.

prep-3.jpg
prep-4.jpg
prep-5.jpg
prep-6.jpg

Susan

[Irish]

Step 4: That pattern that I have traced is the simplified pattern. At this point in the work I do not need or want all the detail lines in the line art pattern. We will start the burning by working the general areas of the simplified pattern as if they were one unit not multiple grouped pieces.

Off to start the mapping for the darkest areas.

I will be starting the actual burning tomorrow, Saturday, Nov. 22! So please check back and join me in the fun!

prep-7.jpg

Susan

[carverduff]

Lora,
You've got to try the Optima 1 Dual...You'll love it! Hubby will understand. Just tell him you're worth it and smile.

[jax]

Thank you for all that info,hopefully I can put one half of it in practice.

Jax.