Free Postage Stamp Pyrography Project:
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Stamp collecting is one of the favorite past times in the U.S. Many of us began as small children who waited impatiently for the day’s mail to arrive to discover if one of the envelopes sported a new stamp for our album.
As adults our interests expanded into the history, geography, and political movements of foreign countries or into the elusive chase of a particular stamp that would complete a year set or series release.
A philatelist, stamp collector, might focus their collection of a specific time period – as stamps issued during World War II – or on a specific group of countries – as stamps issued from the Caribbean Island nations – or on a particular topic – as steam engines, butterflies, or dog breeds.
You can bring your favorite stamp topic into your love of wood burning with this beginner’s level pointillism-styled project. Pointillism is the art style of creating designs, with graduated shading, through the use of a simple dot pattern. So let’s begin our free ArtDesignsStudio.com / LSIrish.com project by getting our supplies together.
Free Postage Stamp Pyrography Project, sponsored by Art Designs Studio :
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9” X 12” x 1/4” birch, basswood, or poplar plywood
220- to 320-grit sandpaper
Brown paper bag
#4 soft pencil for tracing
Masking tape to secure the paper pattern
Ruler
Variable temperature pyrography unit
Ball tip or loop tip burning pen
Artist white eraser
Polyurethane or acrylic spray sealer
 | Simple and Realistic Flower Package |
| Floral Corners Pattern Package |
Each wood burning unit manufacturer has a wide variety of pen tip profiles that you can use in your pyrography work. The shape of the tip determines the shape of the small dot pattern that pen will burn.
Where a ball-tip pen creates a perfectly round dot, the loop-tip pen makes a small oval burn pattern. Any pen tip can be used for pointillism, so have some fun practicing with each burning pen you have in your kit to determine which pen tip will work best for you.
 | Western Horses Pattern Pack |
| Assorted Horses Pattern Pack |
Creating a practice board before you begin your project allows you test you tip points, experiment with your temperature settings, and explore the textures that you can use on any pyrography project.
If you are starting a new project work, practice on the same media on which you will burn your design. For this project you would burn your practice board on birch, basswood, or poplar plywood.
 | Old Cars & Truck Pattern Package |
| Country Living Mantel Pattern Package | |
The simple shape of the dot is used to create the pointillism style of pyrography. Fine, small dots widely spaced give a light tonal value to the area of work while tightly packed, medium-sized dots take the area into a darker tonal value.
The size and tonal value of each individual dot is controlled by the temperature setting of your wood burning unit. A medium temperature settings, between 4 and 5, makes mid-tone, medium-sized dots. Hotter temperature settings between 6 and 7 will give you a dark toned dot slightly wider in size than the mid-tone settings.
Of all of the art styles available to the pyrographer, pointillism is the easiest way to create seamless, graduated shading.
Giraffe Practice board: Working left to right
First square: medium temperature setting, lightly packed
Second square: medium temperature setting, graduated packing
Third square: medium-hot temperature setting, graduated to white
Fourth square: medium-hot temperature setting, solid fill corner
Another FREE Lora Irish wood burning pattern!
Copyright, Lora S. Irish, 1997 – 2015; Art Designs Studio.com, 1997 – 2015
All International Rights Reserved
Use of any information, images, or text in digital or printed format or in any magazine, book, or booklet is strictly prohibited
without the written, hard copy permission of the author, Lora Irish.
This is new work, created after May 2013, by Lora S. Irish. Use in part or whole by any publishing company
is strictly prohibited without a written, signed, and dated contract for this new work with the author.
June 01, 2015