TUTORIALS

Are you an artist? Craftsman? Student?

Hungry to learn more? Well enjoy this "How to" page!

P Y R O G R A P H Y   or    W O O D B U R N I N G

As an artist I am often asked how I did something? How did I get a certain affect? Or how do I get past a certain type of problem? Or, "Ya got any pointers?" Well here is a step by step tutorial with details of not just the stages of the work, but how the individual techniques are applied to get the end results. To any aspiring pyrographers or artists out there, I wish you the best and hope that this helps you to further your goals as an artist! Enjoy! - Erik -

THE WATER WARRIOR

STEP 1

The concept was simple. I wanted to make a plaque with a strong and yet sexy female character on it. My warrior needed to be alluring and yet quite capable of dispatching annoying threats.

  Also I was playing with water and the reflection affect which has a stigma among pyrographers ( and other artists as well ) of being difficult to portray well.

  So I found a swimsuit model who was chosen both for her physical or aesthetic qualities, as well as for the fact that the picture was done in water and had a clearly available reflective feild to work from. After doing a transposition onto my plaque the fun stuff began.

  By the way, just a footnote to artists out there; remember the importance of the title of an art peice. Often a title is quite the compliment or descriptive and thus ver important to name well.

Okay Folks! This is the begining step to my "Water Warrior" burn. I have sketched her onto a 5X7 inch wood plaque. As you look through these images I am going to be providing you with step by step instructions that I hope will help you out in your own burns. The techniques used in the tutorials may be applied to all topic matter, so whether or not the images are your cup of tea or not, the way that they are done may help you to pick up a tip or two for your artwork. The next step from this sketch will be to initially burn the outline and then start to detail areas such as her weapons, garb etc. In the course of years doing artwork I will say that my biggest asset has been a desire to learn all that I can from as many different folks as I can and apply the things I like best to my own work. Remember as you view this that no matter how proficient you are, or how bad you may think you are, we are all working to improve our artwork, and all doing it because we enjoy what we do. Have fun and do not be afraid to try new things and enrich yourself whenever you can! Most importantly, believe in yourself! You are better than you think you are! I know this because as you read this you are trying to learn more, and thus growing! So when I see you, I see your potential, and not your limitations! I hope that you see yourself in that same light! Good luck with your projects and I hope you enjoy this tutorial! Let's begin shall we? Have a look at the next step. - Erik -

STEP 2

Okay, the outline of the sketch has been burned, & the shading is comming along. I have yet to do the water and the axe head as well as her hair. But lets talk a little about what I have done. The one area that seems to get a lot of "Ouuuuuuuuuuuhs and Ahhhhhhhhhs" from everyone is the fur of her mantel. Fur is NOT difficult IF you are patient and can make fine lines. And since I have taught fine lines to 7 year olds through 96 year olds, I am sure that you can do them easily too! For fine hair lines I use the middle and front edge of the blade of a Universal point. By making a quick light draw stroke on the wood I get fine little lines! I use these to initially edge the fur areas and then to fill in the center space of the pelt. Bear in mind that animal furs that lighten toward the underside ( a phenomena in animals called "countershading" ) such as with wolves, rabbits, deer, ground squirrels, big cats ( and small too ), ( NOTE: fish scales, some snakes and reptiles, etc also show "countershading" ), and more, that you must keep this fur area more lightly lined. In fact fewer lines trick the eye into assuming the colour is lighter/white, or that the area is brightly lit. I use a shading technique in the darker areas of the fur that involves 2 steps. Step 1, adding more hair lines to increase density. Step 2, using a light scraping motion with the blade edge of the Universal point pulled at a diagonal angle to prevent it from catching the grain and "Biting" into the wood with a dark spot ( Known in the trade as "!@%#!*&!!#X!" < or "Oooops!" ). If you do get an "Oooops!" you can correct it with the tip edge of an exacto blade, held at a strong horizontal angle and used to lightly side scrape the overburn away. ( NOTE: Do NOT carve at the wood with the blade! the object is to erase, not to sculpt the mistake away! With a light touch and using the right angle it is easy to erase errors using this technique! ). The same light diagonal shading technique ( light pressure ) was used to create her skin tone. When shading there are some things to remember. First of all is to establish the direction of the light. Once you know roughly which direction you want the light to be going you can shade with a stronger darkening the farther away from the light that an objects shape is. While discussing light it is important to realize too that light is amplified along water surfaces. This is due to it being reflected which you can think of from an artistic stand point as "bouncing" back up from the angle it strikes the water surface. This causes a glare affect and also Underlighting as can be seen in my Warrior's inner legs, lower cheek of her glutes where the spread of her legs allows the light to reach that area, and also along her outer legs edges. This is all part of the optical illusion that sells it as light relection from water. The belt, scabbard, sheath, and bracer have been pitted with stimpling to create a texture, and then shaded. Stimpling ( Also referred to as Stippling, or Pointilism is the art of shading or creating an image by use of dots in varying density and proximity/closeness. ) It is a good tool and even better if used in conjunction with other techniques to create affects in your artwork. Okay let's see what happens next. - Erik -

These tips and tutorials appear in my album on woodburner.com under my screen name skjoldhus. And of course this and many other tutorials appear in The Woodburner site.

  If you are interested in learning more about pyrography or what burner tools are what, or you are simply an admirer of beautiful artwork, then you really need to pop over there and have a look at the fantastic works that appear on that site in the Galleries, or in the different member albums if you have a specific artist that you like.

  So take the time to learn and grow and be inspired!

STEP 3

Well I have yet to tackle her face at this point and upon studying the water reflection I noticed a glare area at the inner base of her left leg where her boot meets the water. It is too strong and makes it look as if her boot is cut in and is an irritation to the eye. For some of you this may seem very anal and insignificant, but in the grand scheme of things, your ability to pay attention to details inside the burn and correct them will make all the difference in your final product and the quality of your artwork! It is the little things that count! The water has been shaded in here and gleams are left where the water reflects light along ripple edges. Learning light and shadow and also the nuances of water can seem duanting at first, but it is easier than it may initially seem. If push comes to shove use photo's of existing water and convert these pics into Black and White! Once colour is no longer clouding your judgement you will be able to make patterns from the water in such B&W photos. In my opinion as a long time artist in many other media forms, as well as Pyrography, 9 times out of 10 the things that seem hardest are easily overcome if you take just a few steps. The most important one is to change your mind set from "This is impossible! I am never going to get it!" to a mindset of "I can do this with a little practice and persistance! No big deal!" The next step is to take away the distraction. You can achieve this either by Graphing a photograph and then making a proportionally larger graph on the surface that you are doing the artwork on, & then just doing each grid individually. ( Make each square look like the smaller corrisponding square in the photo! ) OR you can do a transposition of a Black and White photo and trace the lines on the photocopy while you have a piece of graph/carbon paper underneath. This will give you an exact detailing from the photograph! Fine touches are becoming evident in this image and as soon as her head is finnished the image will be complete! Okay let's move on to the final image! - Erik -

Another pointer:

  You are an artist. If you are a good artist you are also a perfectionist. Never satisfied. Always certain that you can do better or improve more or add more to your works.

  THE TIP: Don't OVERDO a peice! Sometimes we loose our focus by trying too hard to enhance our work. Give yourself a cut off point and allow yourself to be grudgingly happy with the point you are at when you reach that cut off point. What good is artwork if you improve it to the point of failure. It is easier than it seems to take a good peice and ruin it by overdoing the artwork. Always leave them hungering for more and wondering about what else could have been a part of the art?

This is the completed image. All of the shading has been done and using the tip end of an exacto blade I have cleaned up a few of the fine lines. Tip scraping is an excellent way to edit your burn,narrow in lines, erase mistakes etc. However there is a price to be paid if you over do it. Over using it creates small furrows in the wood surfaces, especially soft wood, and also roughs the wood surface making blending and colour shading back into the scrape area tougher than on the flat work surface of the wood. But at any rate,... with proper use it is a great editing tool for Pyrographers! I hope that you have enjoyed this burn and wish you the very best in all of your own projects! - Erik -

NEXT TUTORIAL; LITTLE DOG

STEP 4

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