Thin to Thick Outlines for Pyrography

Pyrograhy Doodles #2

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The traced pattern lines of your pyrography pattern can be approached in several ways.  Let’s look at a few ideas before we begin the next step of the Mushroom Pyrography Doodle Project by Lora S. Irish.

If you are just joining this free online pyrography project please slip over to our craft, carving, and pyrography patterns website, Art Designs Studio, to get your free patterns for this project. Its the Spring 2014 package in the right hand navigation widgets. The download link is on our home page.

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Defining the Boundary Lines of Your Pattern

Greenman Wood Burning by Lora IrishA simple outline burning along the tracing lines will define the pattern for you, but it can give your finished project a stiff, rigid look.  In the Green Man burning, right, all of the tracing lines were burned at a hot temperature, using an even, thin line.  This pyrography was worked to create a wood cut effect.  The entire burning was worked at one temperature setting, limiting the tonal values to just two tones – the white of the wood and the black of the burned line.

 

 

 

Shaded Mushroom Pyrography Project by Lora IrishThe traced lines of your pattern are just guide lines and do not need any burning.  You can define an area, without outlining it, by bringing your shading up to the line.  In this mushroom sample the shading touches the pattern line.  Where the shading stops defines the boundary of that area.  The few outline strokes in the finished work are accent lines only.

For our Mushroom Pyrography Doodle project we are using a full outline for all of the pattern lines.  This will create a boundary line around each of our doodle fill patterns.  To make that outline more interesting the line is worked in a thin to thick to thin width, changing the weight of the line as it moves through the pattern.

 

Temperature Setting and Pen Tips

Each variable temperature wood burning unit has its own settings for the different temperatures used to create your tonal values.  Create a sepia scale tonal value chart, using your burning unit and your pen tips, to establish the exact settings your unit used.  To learn more about tonal values please go to Wood Burning Sepia Values.

sepia scale for wood burningFor the outline burn that we will be working I have set my temperature setting to a high or hot setting.  I want a setting hot enough to burn a rich, dark brown line but not so hot that the pen tip scorches the wood outside the line.  If your pen tip is creating a light brown halo outside of the line, in the background area against the line, your burning unit is set to high.

 

ball tip wood burning penPen Tips for Fine Line Burning

I have two favorite tips that I use for my line work.  One is a medium-sized ball tip pen and the second is a medium-sized loop tip pen.  Both work excellently at any temperature setting.

loop tip wood burning pen

Keep your pen tip clean of any carbon build-up as you work.  A clean, bright tip burns a thinner, more even line.  Use a leather or synthetic strop and honing compound to clean your tips.

Mushroom Doodles Pyrography ProjectStep 2: Burn the outlines of the pattern tracing.

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.

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.  A close-up of the thick to thin outline is shown in the header image in this post.

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.

 

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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!

 

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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

Woodcarving / By

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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