Walking Sticks and canes are a favorite wood carving project for both beginning carvers to the most advanced woodworker. This free, online project by Lora Irish will take you through the basic techniques used in choosing your wood staffs and sticks, wood carving cane toppers, cane construction, and finishing used for walking sticks. Learn how to use wood burning in your cane carving to clean the joint lines of your carving and add fine details. Explore the different steps you can use to add bright, bold painted coloring.
This free Irish project will be posted over the next several weeks, and will include how to carve the planes of the wood spirit face. So please check back often to see what new techniques, patterns, and ideas Lora has posted.
Harvesting Walking Sticks – Learn how to harvest, store, and dry your tree saplings and branches for cane carving.
Common Tree Species – Take a look around your own backyard to discover which tree species you can use for walking stick and cane carving.
Adding Extras – Make your walking stick stand out by adding a small ‘What If’ bag to your staff.
Our next lessons will focus on Cane Construction Techniques!
I know that August has just begun and that it is still a month before the kids go back to school, but this is the perfect time to start collecting the patterns and projects that you will want to work this fall.
This “Oh So Easy Santa Ornament” is a great beginner’s project and a real quick carve for any advanced carver. He takes only two carving knifes – a bench knife and a v-gouge. Make a dozen or more, place them in a basket of straw with a few extra Christmas balls and have them ready and at hand to give away as instant Holiday gifts!
Estimated Carving Time: less than 2 hours
Estimated Painting Time: 1/2 hour
Supplies:
bench knife or large chip carving knife v-gouge sharpening tools 1″ x 1″ x 4″ basswood block 320-grit sandpaper Acrylic craft paints titanium white burnt sienna cadmium orange deep cadmium red Acrylic or polyurethane spray sealer 20-gauge copper wire 16-gauge copper wire
Please, check in often as Lora is doing her yearly pattern closet cleaning! Lots of free wood carving and pyrography patterns are headed your way.
With time and age your wood burning and pyrography designs appear to fade into the wood, losing those sharp, dramatic contrasts and very pale tonal values. Recently, while cleaning our studio, I came across several of my very first wood burned projects, which are perfect examples of how as wood ages it develops a distinct patina which directly affects to look of our wood burning tonal values.
Notice how clean and white the background wood appears. The burning shows as a neutral dark brown to pale beige hue, and there is a wide range of tonal values throughout the burning.
Here is a scan, made this morning, of the same wood burning, ten years later. The birch has taken on a rich pale red hue and a darker tonal value in the grain lines. With age and time, wood naturally darkens in tonal value, and the results of that darkening process is called patina.
When the wood grain is exposed to air the wood literally begins to rust through oxidation. The minerals in the natural oils and sap begin to darken into deep orange, red, and rust tones, changing the coloring of both your wood and your wood burning.
In the 2014 scan of this Country Church pyrography you can see the red tones of the oxidized patina. Because that patina is behind the burned lines and shading of the pyrography work, the burned design has also taken on a reddish tone.
Since all of us wish for our pyrography projects to last the test of time, at the very start of your next project you need to consider and adjust for the patina that your wood will develop in the years to come. Sugar pine will darken to a deep, rich orange coloring. Your fresh white basswood will move into the yellow-beige tones, and the neutral beige of your birch will become a medium rusty-red with time. Poplar can move into golden-yellow hues and a freshly cut piece of pink-beige mahogany can become almost black-red within a decade or two.
By knowing what patina color your wood will finally develop, you can plan ahead to work your tonal values in the darker ranges to adjust for aging. You may also need to adjust your pale tonal values. Notice in the two images, right, that the fine grass in the foreground, just below the church door is beginning to disappear. The original temperature setting for this grass created a pale burn line that now is close to the patina tonal values of the wood.
While the two burned images, above, may not seem that dramatic, when I do a side-by-side comparison of the ten-year old Country Church burning against a new, fresh piece of birch plywood you can see it’s not the burning that has faded but the wood that has darkened.
You can not avoid a wood developing a darker patina with time, but you can delay it. Which wood finish you use can change the coloring of the wood. Oil finishes and some varnishes create a pale yellow cast, polyurethane and acrylic sealers then to be very clear. Use a sealer that has UV light protection.
Do not hang or display your finished projects in direct sunlight, nor directly near a heat source as the furnace vent or under a high wattage lamp.
Normal accumulation of dirt and oil can added to the effects of aging. Lightly wash the surface of your projects with a damp, slightly soapy cloth, then rinse with a lightly dampened cloth. For heavy dirt use Murphy’s Oil Soap. It’s excellent for both wood burnings and wood carvings.
We have been working with doodle patterns in our wood burning and pyrography projects this last week. Today, let’s see what happens when you bring those doodle designs to your favorite applique quilt project.
While I have stitched quite a few small applique quilting projects, I have finally started my first full-sized quilt work. I wanted something fun, something easy, but something extra special since I know I will be working on the quilt top for some time. I chose a classic, simple wildflower daisy pattern with long stems and lots of leaves over a four patch neutral toned block pattern.
To add that extra, I chose to get out my fine point permanent marking pen, a variety of tone-on-tone bright cotton fabrics, and the doodle patterns we have been using for our pyrography. This is a great idea for the quilt top that has been lying around the sewing room because you just didn’t feel it had enough pizzazz to finish.
Wash and iron your fabric. Click and save a copy of the free applique quilt pattern. Trace a copy of each pattern piece onto the back of a piece of 220-grit sandpaper. Pin or tack the fabric to a piece of foamboard. Lay the sandpaper pattern pieces on the fabric and trace around the outer edge with a water-soluble pen, allow space between each pattern piece for seam allowances.
Click and save the full-sized pattern above – another free pattern by Lora S. Irish.
Now, using your permanent marking pen, have fun doodling patterns to the fabric. I chose black for my designs, but also consider using multiple colors for pale toned or neutral fabrics. When the doodling is done, remove the fabric from the foamboard and iron. You are ready to move on to your favorite applique technique. Fun, easy, creative, and a one of a kind show stopper.
Today we will put our Mushroom Pyrography Doodle project together to create a desktop note board. The finished project also makes a great recipe holder for your kitchen. If you are just joining this project, please follow the links below for the free step-by-step insturctions and pyrography pattern for this free Lora S. Irish wood burning pattern.
Please drop by our carving and pyrography pattern website, Art Designs Studio, to get your free mushroom pyrography patterns that complement this project. The pattern package is on our home page. The links to the previous posts for this free project are below.
Step 15:Finishing Your Project
1. Lightly sand your work using a fine grit nail foam core pad or board. Wipe any sanding dust with a dry cloth.
2. Cut your cork board to 5 1/2” wide x 10 1/2” high, using a sharp craft knife. Round the corners using a jar or bottle lid as your guide. Cut a sheet of computer paper the same size and shape as the cork. We will use the paper to protect the cork during the sealing steps.
3. Spread an even layer of yellow carpenter’s glue to the back of the cork board. Lay the cork onto your plywood, 3/4” from the right side of the plywood and 1/2” inch from the top – aligning it with the burned design.
4. Lay several heavy books on top of the cork, to apply pressure, and allow the glue to dry completely.
5. Using hot glue, circle the outer edge of the cork board with one strand of sea grass. Begin your gluing at the center of the bottom edge of the cork.
6. Using hot glue, circle the outer edge of the plywood with one strand of sea grass. Begin your gluing at one lower corner of the plywood.
7. Lay the cut computer paper over the cork area of your project. Thumbtack into place. Use a spray sealer, following the directions on the label, to seal your burning. The computer paper will protect your cork from the spray application.
8. Cut your basswood board to measure 12″ long by 3 3/4″ wide. Draw a diagonal line from corner to corner on the basswood. Using either a small cabinet saw or your craft knife, cut along the line to create two triangles. Sand the cut edge of each triangle piece of basswood. Using yellow carpenter’s glue, glue the triangle supports to the back of the plywood to create legs. Place the basswood legs 2” from the sides of the plywood, with the long diagonal cut edge against the plywood.
Thank you for joining me in this fun pyrography, wood burning project.
That’s it!!! If you are ready for more great patterns and designs that you can use in your pyrography doodle projects please see our new Lora Irish pattern package, Pyrography Doodles at Art Designs Studio. This exclusive package includes 300 doodle designs that you can use in your pyrography, 26 carving and pyrography patterns, 10 finished doodle samples, and 3 border patterns.
