[Merle Rice]

Paul, you are off to a very good start. Keep it up.
Thanks for showing them
Merle

[Mottles]

Hi Paul, your duck turned out really nice, good work on the painting also. I noticed you have also started an owl, which is turning out really nice too.
Keep up the good work....I'll be watching. Isn't that Susan great!
Kathy

[Joy]

Paul, you talent is shining through on your new "medium". But don't get hooked on burning and forget to carve!

[Paul_Guraedy]

Thanks all for the postings on my first steps into pyrography. When you start something new, you tend to see the warts more than you see the progress.

Susan, as Mottles stated, you are a great asset to the Forum and I appreciate the help you have given me on the owl. Any suggestions on putting a pattern onto wood? Something that will stand up to being rubbed on as I work and yet is still easily removed. I used a tracing paper my wife uses in sewing to transfer these patterns. Worked wonderfully and, if painted, no drawbacks. But, if I don't wnat to paint, as initially planned for the owl, a very old radio commercial jingle keeps running through my mind, "You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with pepsodent". Makes me wonder about using toothpaste to get the yellow out! I want something that will allow me to transfer only those lines I want. It is too confusing, for me, to transfer all of them, I keep your book open as a "go-by" but do not even pencil in some of the feather groups, just add feathers as I burn.

I have sealed the mallard so will play with the brown watercolor pencil on a practice piece. I would never have thought of adding green to the brown to get the red out!

Again, thaks all for the encouraging words.....

[Banjo]

Paul, one word, "excellent!"

[squbrigg]

Isn't it wonderful when you give something new a try and produce such amaizing results. Well done Paul, you look like you've been at burning for ages!! Susan's books do make the going so much easier and success almost assured, but you display a natural talent for it, so please continue to share with us your efforts.

Bob

[MDWine]

Nicely done Paul... very nice indeed!

[Coffeeman]

Paul,

Nice job on both pieces, always enjoy seeing people expanding ones talents with new adventures, keep it going. Bill

[Paul_Guraedy]

Continuing the WIP of Susan's owl.

No way can I not add some color. I am still playing with the watercolor pencils. And, still do not like them much. The color is too hard to control, I did use them some on this piece, but, it is mainly watercolor washes.

The first photo is a close-up, the second with natural light and the third with a flash. The real color on the piece is somewhere a little brighter than the natural and a lot more muted than the flash.

[Irish]

Oh! Paul! You brought the leaves right up to where they belong. Very very nice! The added toning in the branch really makes a different too.

I use pencil to transfer my pyro patterns. In my experience anything else ususally contains a small amount of oil which quickly gets burned and set into the wood. Dress makers carbon is wax based and the wax does the same thing. If you have used either carbon paper or wax based dress makers carbon you can sometime lift it using finger nail polish remover and a cotton ball. Pat, don't rub, the cotton over the carbon lines. The acetone loosens the oil and wax where the patting motion picks up the carbon without rubbing it into another area.

When I trace I will only trace those lines that I absolutely must have at that step in the work. Then I can do several layers of burning. When I am ready for more information from the pattern I can use a white eracer to remove the pencil lines I have already finished using. Then I cut the pattern apart into sections, rub pencil on the back and trace in the new lines.

Example - I might trace the basics to the wing area where the owl's wing has three or four large feather areas. I do my basic shading and shaping in these large areas. Erace the pencil lines. Then cut my pattern so that each wing area is a separate piece of pattern. I can pencil the back and trace in the individual feathers into each area. This way I am laying the pencil tracing over the pre-bruned areas instead of burning in the individual feather tracings when I shade and shape.

I don't like water color pencils either. I use the wax based colored pencils from Primsmacolor. They stay exactly where I put them and I can build the color up very very slowly.

Back in a few with photo examples.

Susan