2014

Pyrography Doodles by Lora Irish

Pyrography Doodles

11 Comments / Pyrography Projects, Uncategorized / By

Mushroom Doodles Pyrography ProjectYou know you do it!  In fact, anytime you are on hold on the telephone, or as you are talking to your kids, or even when you are just thinking.  If there is a pen or pencil and a piece of paper near by, you are doodling.  As kids, you always knew who was going to grow up to be a creative person because their denim notebook was covered with tons of little doodles.

So, let’s have some fun and bring those creative doodles to our favorite art form, pyrography.  Over the next few days I will be posting an in-depth, step-by-step tutorial for this Mushroom Doodle Pyrography Project.  It will include the pattern, the doodle fill chart, and lots of photos so that you can complete your own desktop cork board note pad or kitchen recipe holder.

We will be working an outline burn around each element of the pattern.  Then, instead of fill those areas with graduated shading, we are going to use our favorite doodle patterns.  Each area of the pattern can feature lines, swirls, spirals, daisies, butterflies, checkerboards, and even full designs of flowers, leaves, and stems.  Anything goes when you are doing a pyrography doodle.

Take another look at the top header image for this post to see a close-up of a few doodle patterns that we will be working.

Mushroom Pyrography Doodles by IrishSupplies:
12” x 12” x 1/4” birch plywood
12” x 4” x 1/4” basswood
variable temperature unit
ball tip or loop tip pen
220-grit sandpaper
fine-grit nail sanding foam board
graphite paper
12” x 12” x 1/4” cork board
yellow carpenters glue
4 yards of sea grass twine
hot glue and glue gun
spray sealer

Mushroom Doodles Pyrography ProjectPlease slip over to our craft, carving, and pyrography patterns website, Art Designs Studio, to get your free patterns for this project.  The download link is on our home page.

Today we will work through the preparation steps.  Tomorrow we will begin the pyrography steps.  So, please, bookmark our blog and share our link with your pyro friends.

1.  With 220-grit sandpaper, sand the front surface of your birch plywood.  Work your sanding with the direction of the wood grain to avoid scratching the surface.  Remove all sanding dust with a dry, clean cloth.

2.  Print a copy of the outline pattern.  Tape the pattern to the right side of your board, 3/4” from the edge.

3.  Using graphite paper under the pattern, trace along all of the pattern lines.  Remove the pattern paper and graphite paper.

4.  Using your finest line burning tip, set your temperature setting to a hot setting. Burn along all of the pattern lines to set your design.  You want a dark, even line.

5.  Work a second burning over the pattern lines to create a thick to thin effect in your outlines.  This adds strength to the outline, giving the line extra emphasis in the finished work, as well as interest in the changing dimensions of the line.

6.  Using the fine nail sanding board, lightly sand over your board to remove any rough areas caused by the hot temperature burn.  Wipe the board with a clean cloth to remove any dust.

So, go grab your freebie pattern package which features three patterns – our mushroom design, a sunflower, and a chicken.  Gather up your wood burning tool kit and let’s get ready to burn!

 

Pyrograhy Doodles Page 1
Pyrograhy Doodles Page 2
Pyrograhy Doodles Page 3
Pyrograhy Doodles Page 4
Pyrograhy Doodles Page 5
Pyrograhy Doodles Page 6
Pyrograhy Doodles Page 7

 

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Contrasting Tonal Values

1 Comment / Pyrography Basics / By

Old car wood burning by Lora IrishTonal values, the shades of sepia from pale coffee with cream to dark chocolate, create the shading colors in our pyrography work.  By planning in advance areas of your work that place one very pale tone against an extremely dark tone you can give an area dramatic contrast, impact, and added depth.

Let’s use the wood burning, Grandpa’s Old Car, as our example of how contrast adds  depth to your pyrography designs. Please click of the finished burning and pattern for full sized printable images.

In the finished wood burning you see an old, abandoned car near a foreground tree and old fence line.  This is our foreground area of the pattern.  Directly behind the car stands a small clumb of trees and a gently rising hillside, this becomes our mid-ground area of the work. In the backgroud, along the hill ridge is a barn and tree line which falls in the background area of the pattern.

For a moment take a look out your window.  Notice that those items or elements that are nearest to you are also the items that have the strongest color and shadow contrasts to them.  The closer an element is to the viewer the stronger the color hues will appear. Foreground elements have distinct white highlights and crisp dark shadows.

Move you eye to the mid-ground area of you window view.  The elements or items in this visual range still have coloration, but the colors are not longer as bright and bold.  Shadows in the mid-ground area lose their white and black tones and move into the middle range of gray or brown.

Move your eye farther into the window view, try and find some distant point.  Notice tWoodburning Free Pattern by Lora Irishhat the background areas have lost much of their coloration.  Most coloring in the background falls in the gray-brown muted tones.  There are few distinct shadows in the distant background of any view.

Air – atmosphere – is not crystal clear.  Air contains fine water particles that when viewed close up, in the foreground of our designs, are invisible.  But the farther we look into a designs as a landscape the more the water particles whiten or cloud the view.

So the farther back we look the more ‘white’ from the water particles cover the elements of the scene. You can see that used in Grandpa’s Old Car pyrography.  The barn scene that is in the background is worked in a narrow range of pale tonal values to give the effect of looking through water laden air.  The mid-ground trees, just behind the car, have more contrast in the tonal values, but those values all fall in the mid-range of our tonal value scale.  Only the foreground had dramatic tones of white and black.

The tonal value placement matches the actual tonal value ranges of each area of a landscape.

Drama can also be created by placing one white tone directly in contact with one full black tone.  Notice along the bottom edge of the car.  The wheel wells and fender area have solid black tones.  In contract the grass in front of the car, that touches the car are unburned, white areas in the design.  That black and white contrast area directly sets the car on the ground in the grass.    This black and white contrast area is so bold that it pulls your eye, over and over again, to that area of the pyrography.

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Welsh Love Spoon Carving

Welsh Love Spoons

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free Welsh Love Spoon patternWelsh Love Spoons have long been a favorite carving theme for wood carvers.  Tradition says that this original art style for wood carving came from the seamen of the British Isles that brought small pieces of wood and a carving knife with them on their ocean voyages to fill the long hours.  Many of the designs and patterns were symbolic of the sailor’s love of home and family, but they also used some of our favorite whittling trick carvings as the ball and chain or ball in the cage.
Today any relief carving pattern can become the design for the handle of your Welsh Love Spoon.  For my sample I chose a simple grape design with a double stem that wraps around the spoon handle.  With another upcoming stormy weekend it seems like a perfect time to share my carving and pattern for you to enjoy.

For your Free Welsh Love Spoon Pattern Pack by Lora Irish, please visit our wood carving,  & pyrography patterns website,
Art Designs Studio.

To learn more about Welsh Love Spoon carving, please visit Lora S. Irish’s free online tutorials.

Welsh Love Spoons Tutorial:
Welsh Love Spoons Introduction
Basic Cutting Techniques
Open Linked Chain
Ball and Cage

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free pyrography project by Lora Irish

Coloring your Pyrography using Colored Pencils

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free pyrography project by Lora IrishWell, its Super Bowl Sunday this weekend here in America.  While my guys will be watching the football game I will be enjoying a few, quiet hours of wood burning and pyrography fun.  I thought you might like to join me.

This quick, and easy Steam Punk Star takes about two to three hours from start to finish.  Use it as a door decoration, on a box lid, or to accent the cover of your latest scrap book.  All you need is the pattern, which as always is given free with the project, your wood burning tools, 7″ sized basswood or poplar star, and a set of twelve artist quality colored pencils.

While you are here you might wish to choose one of our newer projects – Feathered Border, Snowman Card, or create your own Practice Board.  Check out the Pyrography link in the top nav menu for more great, free pyrography and wood burning projects by Lora Irish.

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Chip Carving Common Mistakes

7 Comments / Chip Carving / By

We have spent the last week looking at the wood carving art of chip carving in this free, online seminar by Lora Irish, which includes free chip carving patterns.  Today I thought we might  take a few minutes and look at some of the common mistakes that can happen in your wood carving.

 

Chip Carving Seminar by Lora Irish
Chip Carving Seminar
Chip Carving Supplies
Chip Carving Graphed Patterns
Chip Carving Hand Positions and Grips
Chip Carving – Triangles and Square Chips
Chip Carving – Straight-Wall Chips
Chip Caved Game and Chess Board
Chip Carving Sampler Pattern Layout
Chip Carving Common Mistakes
Chip Carved Shortbread Cookies

 

 

 

Let’s look at a few of the common problems and errors that can happen in chip carving.  Please note that if you are working a practice board you may find that the basswood is not the high quality that you might find in a prepared basswood wood carving blank.  Small chip outs are more common when working practice board quality basswood.

common mistakes in chip carving

1.  Ragged walls can be caused by poor quality wood or because of an improperly sharpened knife edge.  A poorly sharpened knife, or an incorrect bevel to the knife edge are the primary causes for cutting problems in chip carving.

The craft basswood boards available at your local hardware store often show some ragged wall cuts.  A dull knife tears through the wood instead of cutting the wood.  When working on a high quality piece of basswood, check your knife edge as soon as you discover a ragged wall.

2.  Each chip should have a sharp, clean point at the center of the chip well.  Correct this problem by re-cutting along one side of the center point piece.

3.  This chip’s wall was cut using several, staggered strokes.  Re-cut the wall using one full stroke that covers the entire wall side.

4. In this sample the knife effect began the wall cut slightly away from the intersecting joint line between the two chips.  You can re-cut one of the chip walls to thin the intersection.

5.  Every chip carver discovers a very wobbly edge chip walls.  I find this problem most often occurs when I am cutting through a spray adhesive paper pattern.  Use the blade’s edge to shave just the curved area of the line, avoiding the two end points.

6. Chip outs happen and are caused by several reasons.  If you are working on a heavy grained wood as sugar pine, the change in the grain pattern can cause a thin point to break free.

On soft carving woods as basswood the point can chip because the stroke is pulled into the point.  The pulling action tears the point away from the plaque. Try cutting your finest points with a push stroke instead of a pull cut.  With a push stroke you literally lay the edge of the blade along the line and push the blade down into the grain.

Over cutting one side of the point, reaching the blade point too deeply into the wood, can cause a point chip to break away when the second cut meets the first.  Try scoring the point lines first by using a light pressure in the blade and cutting an extremely shallow cut.

Chip outs can be repaired by using wood glue and a tooth pick.  Place a small drop of glue on the board at the break out spot.  Place the broken chip back into position.  Allow the glue to dry thoroughly, about one half hour then re-cut the chip.

7.  If your knife feels as though it is cutting through grainy wood – a sandpaper feeling – check your knife’s edge for sharpness.  It bares repeating that the biggest problem in chip carving is either too steep a blade bevel or an edge that has lost its hone.

Chip Carving Basics E-Project by Lora IrishPlease stop by Art Designs Studio, Lora Irish’s wood carving, pyrography, and chip carving pattern website.

Chip Carving Basics E-Project, Everything from this Chip Carving Seminar and more!  Learn how to create a wide variety of chip carving designs using different styles of easy-to-cut chip motifs, by Lora S. Irish.  37 page, PDF file format, easy to print e-project and the full cp015 Chip Carving Pattern package with 110 ready to print chip carving patterns.

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