On sale through Dec. 31st, 2022
For a limited time get a free bonus book, signed by Lora Irish with your
Thumb Drive order at ArtDesignsStudio.com
This week’s book is the Great Book of Wood Burning – Edition 2, a $22 value.
Wood Carving, Pyrography Pattern Collection Read More »
Collage is the art of using small scraps or pieces of paper, fiber, and printed material to create an image. Its a favorite for scrap booking, altered art, and fine arts. It can also be used for your wood and gourd crafts.
Supplies: mulberry paper, rice paper, hand-crafted art paper, an acrylic based glue, a home computer printer, and a digital pattern.
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Mulberry and rice papers have little to no grain. Instead they have a random fibrous base that allows the papers to bend, and adjust to the surface upon which they are applied. They are often semi-transparent which allows the media to show through the paper fibers – you don’t lose your wonderful wood grain of your basswood slab when you lay printed mulberry paper over top the surface.
Plus! They can be used with your home printer. It is so much easier to print a complicated mandala pattern on art paper and then glue that paper to your board, then to try and trace each and every line of the design.
Acrylic-based glues and pastes keep the printed paper from becoming water saturated, which will cause the paper to buckle. Try Yes! Glue, or PVA bookbinding acid-free glue instead of Elmore’s.
I have two new pattern packages on my pattern website, at ArtDesignsStudio.com, that are perfect for collage work.
I have also posted a new E-Project for creating a Mulberry Paper covered collage wood box, with step-by-step instructions. Currently, July 13th, 2022, there is a Try It Before You Buy It free mandala pattern for the clock shown below posted on ArtDesignsStudio.com’s homepage.
This is a 1/2″ thick, end slab of basswood. Sand the slab with 220-grit sandpaper and remove any dust. Measure for the center point to create the 3/8″ hole needed for the clockworks. Print your free pattern on Mulberry paper. Use YES! glue with a palette knife on the back of the paper. Center the mulberry printed pattern over the clock hole and with your fingers gently rub from the center out on the paper to remove any air bubbles. Let the basswood collage slab dry overnight, then color your mandala with your favorite coloring agent – colored pencils, gel pens, watercolor crayons, soft pastels, and even watercolors. Seal the finished clock with acrylic spray sealer … That’s it, quick, simple, and fun.
My new E-Project focuses on creating a collage covered wood craft box with a mandala design that flows over the top and sides of the box.
You will learn:
how-to print the pattern to your art on mulberry paper, rice paper, or hand-crafted art paper
how-to remove the pre-made box hardware
how-to measure the paper to fit the inside and outside of the box
how-to apply the acrylic-based YES! glue
how-to roll the paper over the sides of the box
how-to cut the lid free from the bottom
how-to create a secret inside lid trap door.
Of course, the E-Project covers basic instructions on using colored pencils to highlight your design.
Plus, there is a large, bonus, peony design, shown printed on medium-beige mulberry paper, ready for framing.
The new E-Project, Art Paper Mandala Collage E-Project, includes both mandala pattern packs – Mandala 1 Collage Patterns, and Mandala 2 Collage Patterns. $14.95 for all.
Mulberry Paper Collage for Wood Working Read More »
Simply outlining the pattern is often our very first project in pyrography wood burning. After decades as a pyrographer I still use this art style on many projects because of the clear, crisp impact you get by just following the tracing lines. Also called line art, outlining is often used in engraving, etching, woodcut and lithography. For more please read this great Wikipedia article.
Learn more about art styles that can be used in your pyrography wood burning – Pyrography Style Handbook is available at Amazon.com.
Very simple, very flat, and very two dimensional, a simple outline conveys your image without details or shading.
This dragon face is worked on a 3″ leather key fob. Since he is both well detailed and worked in a very small space, simple outlining is the perfect choice.
Please learn more about burning on leather, here at LSIrish.com.
The leather burned purse and the birch plywood burn, above, both use the same pattern from our pattern pack – Dragon Medallions. It is the lack of shading and extra detailing in the leather purse image that makes the dragon a stronger design then the wood version. The wood version almost has too much to see compared to the clean, crisp image on the leather.
Wood burning, especially on paper mache, leaves a physical impression in the media. Santa’s outline literally drops down into the surface of this paper mache box. The trough that comes from a simple outline stroke can also be used as a damn. Here it works to stop the application of the acrylic craft paints from spreading into the background area.
Note on this little Santa, the background is not burned totally black. Instead it is filled with the words, “ho ho ho!”
For more holiday and Christmas ideas to use with your simple outline style of wood burning, visit our holiday pattern category in our pattern site, ArtDesignsStudio.com.
I have one more fun simple outline styled work to share with you. Its a Celtic deer design. While the above samples all use carefully controlled, uniform thickness lines, this hart uses thick and thin lines. As you move through the pattern make some areas of the line width thick then taper back to very thin. This adds a little dimension without losing the crisp, line art effect.
LSIrish.com is an affiliate of Amazon.com – Pyrography Style Handbook
Here’s a fun patterns for the twisted tail Celtic Hart. Click on the image below to save to your desktop. 
Pyrography Styles – Simple Outlining Read More »
Pyrography is so much more than just outlining your pattern and burning the background to black. Any art style can be created, using a wood burning tool and your selected pen tips.
Pyrography Styles Handbook by Lora S. Irish, at Amazon.com
Let’s look at Pointillism in this day’s post.
Pointillism, also called Neo-Impressionism, was introduced in the late 1880’s by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. There is a great Wiki article on this painting style – read more here.
Pointillism began as a new way to blend colors on a canvas. Instead of blending two or three colors to create a new color, small, tightly packed dots of the two colors visually created the new third color. So instead of mixing and blending cadmium yellow with ultramarine blue to create a medium green, a very small dot of yellow was painted next to a small dot of blue. Your eye then blends the two color dots into the new green tone.
To learn more about Pyrography art styles, please visit Amazon.com for your copy of Pyrography Styles Handbook by Lora S. Irish – Your comprehensive guide to the 7 major styles of woodburning: crosshatching, realism, pointillism, shaded drawing, engraving, silhouette, and texture painting. LSIrish.com is an affiliate of Amazon.
Please see our article, Color Wheel or Who is Roy G. Biv?
If a yellow-green was wanted the artist would paint two small dots of yellow next to the blue. If you wanted a darker green, then the artist used two touching dots of blue with one dot of yellow.
The idea of using dots instead of strokes directly impacts how we as wood burning artists can create a pyrography image. Where Neo-Impressionists used color dots, we wood burners use heat setting for pale, medium and dark dots, and density to create pale tonal area to almost solid black areas in our work.
For more reading on pyrography and wood burning techniques, please see our pyrography navigation menu.
This Celtic Bird Postage Stamp burning is also worked in the Pointillism style, and available for free here at LSIrish.com. This post includes the free Celtic Bird postage stamp pattern.
The cougar pyrography project will take you, step-by-step, through a fun, pointillism work.
This entire design is worked using only a small dash stroke made with a ball tip or loop tip pen. How hot the temperature setting is and how densely you pack those dash strokes gives the sepia value range – pale areas, medium toned areas, and black areas.
This post included the free Cougar pattern and is one of the step-by-step projects included in Pyrography Style Handbook.
Posting tomorrow on Silhouette style burnings !!!!
Pyrography Styles – Pointillism Read More »
Crayons are a quick and easy media to use on your printed patterns when you want to test your tonal values before you begin your pyrography burn.
While browsing through the Back to School supplies at my local big box store I came across Crayola’s 24 pack of Colors of the World skin toned crayons. This same palette of colors is also available from Crayola as marking pens – Crayola Ultra Clean Washable Multicultural Markers, Broad Line, 10 Count, and in colored pencil media – Crayola 24 Colors of The World Skin Tone Pencils.
(These are Amazon.com Affiliate links above.)
All these packs hold a range of yellow-brown, red-brown, and neutral brown color giving us, pyrographers, a full sepia scale to compliment our burnings.
Before you touch your wood watercolor paper, or gourds with your pen, use can use these color packs to establish exactly where you want your shading and how light or dark you want it.
Any mistakes or any decisions to change an area’s value is worked out on paper, not on your expensive basswood plaque.
Sepia Tonal Value Crayons for Pyrography Read More »
