Pyrography

Pyrography on Leather

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pyrography leather jewelry

Leather Burned Jewelry, Day One
Leather Burned Jewelry, Day Two
Leather Burned Jewelry, Day Three

In this leather pyrography series, you will find the steps for creating the copper, wire-bent jewelry.  Plus, how to create 10 quick necklaces out of one pyrography burning that is perfect if you are a craft seller or need a group of Holiday presents this years.

 

leather pyrography journalLeather Pyrography Art Journals

An easy way to get started with leather pyrography art journals is to purchase several scrap bag assortments of leather.  This gives you a variety of leather to begin exploring leather burning.

 

 

How to Make Easy, Quick, Deckle Edge Journal Paper

Journaling is a hot hobby today, giving pyrographers a wonderful leather surface for our sepia designs. Creating faux deckle edged paper adds to the unique quality of our wood burning journals. Let’s discover how very easy it is to make your own deckle edged leaves and writing sheets.

 

 

Pyrography Cleaning Graphite Tracing Lines

I prefer to either use a  graphite tracing paper or graphite pencil lead rubbed over the back of my pattern my paper as my tracing media.  Graphite leaves a pale to medium gray line on our working surface that has no oil or wax, and therefore is not a permanent marking.

 

 

Leather Pyrography Wood Burning Tools

Let’s take a look at Plaid’s Low-Temperature, One-Temperature burning tool with four interchangeable tips.

 

 

 

how to trace a pattern for wood burningHow to Trace or Transfer Your Pattern

Basic tracing and  transferring your pattern instructions – for wood, gourds, paper, leather, and cloth

 

 

 

Leather Purse Pyrography Project Blog Posts
Leather Purse Pyrography Project Pages
Leather Pyrography Purse Double-Needle Stitching

When I began my work with pyrography on leather, my practice board got a touch out of hand.  I began my text project with a 10 lb. scrap bag of vegetable-dyed leather from Springfield Leather Co.  which contained a variety of weights, textures, and species of leather pieces.

 

leather burned jewelry by Lora IrishLeather Burned Jewelry, Day One
Leather Burned Jewelry, Day Two
Leather Burned Jewelry, Day Three

Have fun turning those scrap leather pieces into pyrography jewelry.

 

 

Pyrography Greenman Leather Bullet Journal CoverPyrography Greenman Leather Bullet Journal Cover Page

The journal is bound with a very simple lacing pattern that can be opened to remove and refill the journal cover for long-term use. The paper pages, printed using my home computer printer, are laced to the back cover only, which allows the front cover to be fully opened and even rolled over to the back of the journal during use.

 

 

Pyrography Leather Boot Belt Project, Part One
Pyrography Leather Boot Belt Project, Part Two

Learn in this free, online pyrography project how easy it is to add pyrography burnings to small leather boot belts, leather belts, and leather wrist bands.  Step-by-step instruction and free wood burning patterns.

 

Pyrography Leather JournalGriffin Pyrography Leather Journal

This step by step leather journal project assumes that this is your first wood burning, includes how to trace pattern, basic pyrography techniques, and the instruction for the Griffin Journal.

Pyrography on Leather Read More »

Leather Pyrography

Leather Pyrography Art Journals

An easy way to get started with leather pyrography art journals is to purchase several scrap bag assortments of leather.  This gives you a variety of leather to begin exploring leather burning.  No piece is so perfect that you can’t just throw away a ‘mistake’ or cut it down to become a smaller cover.  The textures, distortions, and flaws add to the vintage look of your journal when everything is done.

leather pyrography journal

This sample 5 lb. scrap bag from Springfield leather, listed on Amazon.com, is packed with vegetable-dyed pieces that measure from hand-size up to 1 square foot – perfect sizes for our journal covers.  A 4-6 square foot vegetable-dyed double shoulder piece of leather from the same company runs about $35.   Springfield’s SLC’s Journal Makers Bundle of tanned and dyed leather gives your a wide variety of choices for back covers, and leather journal inserts.

But you will note when you follow the links above that both packs have irregular edges, some clamp marks and stretch marks, and even a few wrinkles … which makes them even better when you are designing your Leather Pyrography Art Journal.  Those pulls, stretch marks and little oddities in the leather surface give your journal cover a wonderful distressed, vintage look.

 

leather pyrography journal

 

In the Mayan Leather Journal photo, above, you can see those stretch marks along the right side top and bottom corner.

I chose the Mayan design specifically for this scrap of leather.  As Mayan hieroglyphs were worked as stone carvings they did not have crisp, clean, sharp edges to the design.  As time, nature, and weather have eroded those same writings the edges have become more distorted.  So what could be more perfect than a stone carving design on a wrinkled piece of leather.  Those wrinkles give the feeling of the rock face in which the Mayan’s created their architecture.

When you add that as you wood burn your leather you also lightly sculpture the leather surface, our Mayan Priest becomes a 3-d rendition of the pattern.  You can see along the left  side of the cover how the burn pushes the leather down, leaving the un-burned or lightly burned areas proud of the surface.

Several light coats of a gloss acrylic spray sealer accents the 3-d effect of the leather and design by creating bright highlights along the edges of the pattern work.

leather wood burned art journal

This journal sample uses both an edge piece of a vegetable-dyed shoulder and a scrap piece of dark mahogany tanned leather for the back cover – one piece from both of the scrap packages above.  Since the mahogany tanned leather is of a higher weight (thicker) than the veggie leather cover, I used my smallest v-gouge wood carving tool to create a simple checker board design directly into the back cover.  Those gouge  marks let that leather roll more easily as I use the journal.  A third piece of scrap leather became the binding edge of the journal where the screw posts join all the leather pieces and hold the inside paper pages.

mandala leather journal pattern

Leather Pyrography Art Journals Read More »

How to Make Easy, Quick, Deckle Edge Journal Paper

 

Journaling is a hot hobby today, giving pyrographers a wonderful leather surface for our sepia designs. Creating faux deckle edged paper adds to the unique quality of our wood burning journals. Let’s discover how very easy it is to make your own deckle edged leaves and writing sheets.

Learn more ….

Yes … of course there is another Free Lora Irish pattern on the How to Make a Deckle Edge Paper page …

Worked using Mayan, Aztec, Inca Warriors Patterns, $10.95, Exclusive Designs , by Lora S. Irish, 14 Line Art Patterns available at ArtDesignsStudio.com.

 

 

 

How to Make Easy, Quick, Deckle Edge Journal Paper Read More »

Pyrography Cleaning Graphite Tracing Lines

September 15, 2020

This morning I am working on getting your supply list ready for the Feathered Green Man Leather Journal Pyrography Project and came across a few photos on how to clean the graphite tracing lines from your wood burning project that I thought I would share.

I prefer to either use a  graphite tracing paper or graphite pencil lead rubbed over the back of my pattern my paper as my tracing media.  Graphite leaves a pale to medium gray line on our working surface that has no oil or wax, and therefore is not a permanent marking.

 

I do like to remove those tracing lines as early in the burning as is reasonable and will even do an extremely pale tonal value burned line before any shading work is done just so that I can erase the graphite right away.

A white artist eraser works wonderfully for wood and gourds.  These are our rougher wood burning surfaces.  Do not use an eraser that has any coloring ( that pink one on the end of your bright yellow #2 pencil) to it as the color dye can rub off onto your project.

An architect’s eraser pad – a fine mesh cloth bag filled with eraser grindings – is perfect for our finer medias as paper, leather, and chipboard (paper mache).  Since the eraser bag is flexible it works well for wood carvers that want to remove any carbon build-up from their wood burning details on the carving.

 

A dry ‘Magic’ eraser not only removes the graphite lines from your leather or wood project, it also picks up any oil and dirt that has been left from moving your hand across the surface.

In the photo sample above, Feathered Green Man Leather Journal Pyrography Project, I first cleaned the graphite tracing using my Architect’s eraser pad.  Then I followed up with a light cleaning using the dry ‘Magic’ eraser … and,wow!, was I surprised at how much more dirt I picked up …

That ‘Magic’ eraser is now a permanent addition to my pyrography tool kit.

 

Pyrography Cleaning Graphite Tracing Lines Read More »

Leather Pyrography Wood Burning Tools

Plaid 30725E  Low Temperature Tool – Available through Plaid Online

Plaid was kind enough to send me a sample wood burner the other day … like I need another wood burning unit to add to my dozen plus one temperature, soldering style wood burners that I have collected over the 25 years of being a wood burner …

Well, I didn’t know it, but I did!

This is a one temperature burner that is pre-set at the low temperature of 750 degrees – 200 degrees lower that the average pre-set unit, which makes it perfect for leather burning pyrography.

Plus … it has the standard four interchangeable tips that we all know and love that are available with most one temp tools.

I already have several low temperature, soldering style tools that I often use for my leather crafting.  Each of those comes in the package with only one, cone point tip for fine line work.

Plaid has included the universal writing tip, leaf shading tip, the fine point cone tip, and the wide ball tip, all for under $17.00.

 

Plus Plaid’s low temperature leather burning tool has an on/off switch right on the cord and a handy little stand for safety.

I happened to have a sample journal cover that I could grab as a practice board … It has been quite awhile since I have used the soldering style pen and every  pen, no matter who manufacturers it, needs a little practice time to get your correct grip, pressure, and movement.

 

So, here is my first using the Plaid one temperature leather burning tool – feathered green man journal cover.  Pale tones are created using the cone point tip and a light hand pressure, wide strokes are made with the universal tip and medium hand movement.  The darkest tones were made with the wide cone tip and a simple touch-and-lift stroke.  The tip of the leaf spear shader is wonderful for thick-and-thin line work as in his beard.

And then I did this one … a giraffe leather journal keeper with suede cord.

Number three is also a journal keeper made from scrap leather and with elastic cord.

 

The wide cone tip is so much fun to use it lead to this wood flower journal cover – number four.

And number five is this easy leather journal that has the front cover cut open to show the burning on the inside flap.

My whole weekend got eaten up by a Plaid One Temperature, Low Temperature, Interchangeable Tip Wood Burning Tool … grin!

 

Leather Pyrography Wood Burning Tools Read More »

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