Pyrogaphy is such a permanent art form, or so it seems. When you burn a line into a piece of wood and you don't want it there, well you can not flip the pen over and erase it. However, there are some little tricks to getting rid of some mistakes. Light scratching with a sharp exacto-blade can reveal unburnt wood beneath a mark, providing the mark was not deep and dark. Sanding away an area is another technique I have employed to get rid of undesirable burning. But sometime you have to live with them and try to incorporate them into your piece.
For this reason I don't usually free hand my work. Instead I use a no.2 pencil and put down a pattern. Or I use tracing paper to copy my design to the wood. I know I will have the right curve, dimension, or whatever on my project before I touch the heated tip to the wood. The prep work takes a long time.
For the most part this sits well with me. I am a bit of a perfectionist. Patience with this process is not usually an issue, but there are times I just want to get at it. Above is a china cabinet that I refinished. The sides and two panel on the front were burned with morning glories. All done free hand.
Flowers are what I like to draw. Morning glories, dogwood and apple blossoms are my favorite to create. To the left is a coffee table (one I've talked about before) that was decorated in Morning Glories. To the right is an Apple Blossom telephone table (I already talked about this one before too) that was burned free hand. A straight edge was used to get the border just right, but otherwise it was just the hot pen on wood.
Next to this is the Petunia bowl I showed you the other day. I drew pages of petunias in my sketch book before I free handed these blooms onto this bowl. Originally I was going to trace the pattern onto the sides of the bowl, but the pencil lines wouldn't show up. So I cleaned them off and just drew with the skew pen tip.
I wish I had snapped pictures of some of the other pieces to show you. I have sold them so the moment is lost. I have burned grape vines with grape clusters on a mantle for a wine shop, daisies on hair clips, butterflies and dragonflies on the backs of wood brushes, dogwood and cherry blossoms on wall shelves, and much more.
What do you like to draw? Do you prefer to use patterns or trace to free handing it?
For this reason I don't usually free hand my work. Instead I use a no.2 pencil and put down a pattern. Or I use tracing paper to copy my design to the wood. I know I will have the right curve, dimension, or whatever on my project before I touch the heated tip to the wood. The prep work takes a long time.
For the most part this sits well with me. I am a bit of a perfectionist. Patience with this process is not usually an issue, but there are times I just want to get at it. Above is a china cabinet that I refinished. The sides and two panel on the front were burned with morning glories. All done free hand.
Flowers are what I like to draw. Morning glories, dogwood and apple blossoms are my favorite to create. To the left is a coffee table (one I've talked about before) that was decorated in Morning Glories. To the right is an Apple Blossom telephone table (I already talked about this one before too) that was burned free hand. A straight edge was used to get the border just right, but otherwise it was just the hot pen on wood. 
I wish I had snapped pictures of some of the other pieces to show you. I have sold them so the moment is lost. I have burned grape vines with grape clusters on a mantle for a wine shop, daisies on hair clips, butterflies and dragonflies on the backs of wood brushes, dogwood and cherry blossoms on wall shelves, and much more.
What do you like to draw? Do you prefer to use patterns or trace to free handing it?
- Take Care -
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