Want to do Pyrography? Yippee!!!!

What do you NEED to do pyrography?

I get asked pretty often what tools I use to create my work. Here’s a list:

1. Wood - unfinished. Never use anything you suspect has been finished or treated in any way!
2. Sandpaper - I use 150 grit, then 220 grit, but you can certainly go higher.
3. No. 2 Pencils - better than graphite paper or other transfer techniques; it’s non-toxic, erases/sands off easily, and it’s cheap!
4. A white eraser - the pink ones can leave pink smudges on your wood.
5. Exacto-knife - even the best of us make mistakes, and an exacto works as a useful “eraser.”
6. Something to clean your pen with - Ideally this should be a soft brass brush, or a polishing material (aluminum oxide) and leather strop to clean. You can also use your exacto-knife for this. I use a whetting stone, which is WRONG AND BAD AND DON’T DO IT, but whatever, I’m a rule breaker.
   
   And finally:

7) A Pyrography Pen.

If you’re starting off, get a cheap pyro pen at your craft store. For years, I used Walnut Hollow’s. It’s inexpensive and serviceable. Invest in the interchangeable tips, too, as different tips are useful for different techniques. Also, keep a set of pliers on hand to change the tips while they’re still too hot to touch; these pens take a ridiculously long time to heat up and cool down.

Walnut Hollow Pen
Walnut Hollow Tips

They also get uncomfortable to hold after a while, so you may have to get creative with insulating the handle. (I used to use tissues and duct tape, but for obvious reasons, I don’t recommend you do the same.)

If you know you like pyrography, and you’re interested in investing in better tools, then it’s time to get an adjustable-temperature pen. There are two main types: fixed tip and wire tip. Fixed tips have interchangeable pen attachments with different shaped tips. Wire-tips have, well, a wire tip, that you can bend, shape, and grind down to suit your needs. I prefer the fixed-tip kind, but they both have advantages.

I recommend getting an Optima 1, which is what I currently use. The adjustable temperature settings are extremely useful, and it’s one of your least expensive choices, as well.

Optima 1 Resources

If really want to invest in an excellent pen, I hear nothing but wonderful things about the Razortip. Be warned, though, it’s obscenely expensive. I haven’t been able to afford one, yet, but I hope to someday.

Razertip Website

REMEMBER: WORK IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA.

I hope this is helpful!

Material Review: Bamboo

Bamboo stinks.

I mean that literally, not figuratively. Bamboo is actually a fun wood to work with. But it stinks. Maybe it's just the type of bamboo I've worked with in the past. Maybe the bamboo I was using was coated in a protectant that gave off a foul stench. Or maybe time and use had given it an unpleasant scent. I don't know.

What I do know is, I've worked in bamboo four times now. And three of those times, it stank. The smell is, to me, something between a dirty wet rag and a burning water chestnut.

If you can get past the smell, though, bamboo is a novel choice to burn, extremely eco-friendly, durable, and yields quite a unique look.

Photo taken by Karina of Divergent Crafts.

In color, bamboo is a rich ochre (a dark yellow-orange brown). It has a close-spaced, pronounced, straight grain. It's very dense, very hard, and naturally resistant to just about anything. Including heat.

Like balsa wood, burning bamboo can be a nightmare, but for exactly the opposite reason. What makes it so very useful in the kitchen--density and natural resiliency--makes it tough to burn. If you have a professional pyrography pen, be prepared to use a higher heat setting than you are used to. If you're using a craft-store pen, be prepared to spend a very, very long time on your project.

No matter what, it's going to be difficult to shade on bamboo. That heat resistance comes into play here, too; at first, nothing, and then, POW! a black scorch mark.

It takes a fair amount of practice to "feel" when that "pow" is going to hit, and getting the bamboo to show any values between Nothing and Black is tricky.

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Day of the Dead Sugar Skull (Calavera) cutting board, in bamboo.

I know, I know, it sounds confusing! But for the life of me I can't think of how else to put it! You're going to need to practice the shading, and there's just no getting around that.

In fact, you might want to just stick with linework (like the cutting board to the right) and forget about shading all together.

The good news is, this wood looks gorgeous when it's done. It gives a strikingly rich black burn. The burned lines are slightly raised, but since bamboo is very hard to gouge, the finished design looks smooth and even.

Burning on bamboo is dynamic and dramatic, and looks, simply put, rich.

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My advice? Bamboo is great if 1) you're eco-conscious, 2) you need something that will last (just remember to burn deeply!) or 3) you want something very striking in appearance. Be prepared for the smell, and be prepared for the burned fingers. But the end result is probably going  to be something you'll be quite pleased with.

The Victorian Art of Pyrography

Historically known as pokerwork, wood burning, fire painting, fire drawing, and even Fire Needle Embroidery, pyrography is, simply, the art of writing with heat.

Pyrography is an art form that has appeared all over the world, all throughout history... though we seem to have practically forgotten about it here in America.

The Victorian American, however, was quite enamored of it. Encapsulating the height of technology, and riding the coat-tails of a crafting craze, pyrography was a highly popular pastime for the era's fashionable ladies and gentlemen.

The Victorians pyrographed everything, from wooden thimbles to wardrobes, from pill boxes to—yes—pillows.  They even gave this art it’s modern name; the word “pyrography” is a Victorian invention.

In ancient times pyrography was done by heating a metal utensil, such as a poker, until it was red-hot, then using it to sear the canvas (often wood, though other materials were used.)

The Victorians, however, brought this art into the modern age. In the late 19th century, Melbourne’s Alfred Smart invented the benzoline pen. This pen shot benzoline fumes through a hollow platinum tip: essentially, it “painted” with burning paint.  This was a massive improvement over traditional pokerwork!

Advertisements from the time show that one of these kits sold for around $1.50 (about the price of a good corset).

Today we use electric pens rather than chemical ones, but the  principle remains the same: sear the material to create the design. Modern pyrography can be used to decorate anything that burns, including wood, fabric, paper, and leather.

Perhaps you would like to embellish your leather gloves? Or make a wooden bracelet? Or decorate a frontpiece for your corset? My favorite materials, of course, are those that can be used in the home. But really, you’re only limited by your creativity… and the flammability of your material.

More information, and some great pictures, can be found at the Antique Pyrography Tools exhibit at the E-Museum of Pyrographic Art:
http://pyromuse.org/oldtools.html

Material Review: Balsa, the most Gods-Awful Wood Ever

Of the wood commonly sold in craft stores, balsa wood and pine are the most common and least expensive. I don’t mind working with pine, but I have come to despise balsa. This is why.

In color, balsa is brownish, whitish, or yellowish—usually all of them at once—unevenly colored, with a grayish cast. It has a small,  close-spaced, speckley grain. It’s almost weightless, extremely soft, and can be put together easily using only glue.

Balsa wood is great to decoupage, since it’s absorbent enough to work with almost any adhesive. It isn’t terrible to paint, either, though the paint does tend to soak up into the wood, pale out, and bleed. Burning it, however, is a nightmare.

The wood is so light and airy that the pen will gouge deeply with the slightest misapplication of pressure or heat. If the pen is hot enough to leave a strong black line, it will also be hot enough to dent the wood. Truthfully, it's very difficult to burn this wood without carving it.

It also doesn’t yield the rich array of browns and russets that other woods will give; it burns in shades of gray. Your finished burning usually ends up looking “sooty” and dull.

Finally, it’s a fairly ugly, cheap-looking wood, so whatever areas you don’t burn black will look crusty and sickly.

My advice? If you’re looking for a wood that you can carve into, yielding an interesting raised effect, then balsa might be a good choice. Just be prepared to struggle with it a little, and treat it very, very gingerly. If you’re looking for a wood that’s cost effective, though, don’t bother. It might be the least expensive wood out there, but no matter how budget-conscious you are, you’re always better off spending a few extra cents for pine.

It's About Layers

Pyrography, like most art forms, is accomplished in layers. A piece of pyrography is built up, layer by layer, step by step, one detail over another.

Take, as an example, this closeup of the Tendrils pentacle, in progress.

You can see each layer unfolding in one snapshot: the delicate  line work; the graphic blackwork; the more subtle shading; the final bold outline.

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Sometimes, a piece develops very logically, step by step. The spoons are a good example. Nearly every spoon design follows a definite pattern during it's creation.

More often, the layers flow more naturally, overlapping. The techniques used, the layers being worked, change as quickly as metal can heat and cool.

The key to pyrography is patience: being willing to wait. Not only does burning take a long time--far longer than it takes to make a pen line or a brushstroke--but the layering process takes its time, as well. Often, each layer will require a new pen tip, and each pen tip needs to cool down and heat up. It takes longer to heat a pen tip than it does to, for example, clean a paint brush. Think of this time as a meditative period, to reflect on your work, examine your progress, or just clear your mind before the next layer begins.

Tutorial: Wooden Spoons

First, please read this disclaimer. Thanks!

How do I make those spoons? Here's a brief tutorial.

First, I start with some basic raw wooden spoons. They're pine, fairly soft wood, and very easy to work with.

They come in sets of 4, and frequently have defects; one out of eight, I'd say, is not usable.

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Next, I sand. I sand a lot .

It takes about five minutes of Zen-like repetitive motion to smooth a raw spoon.

I start with a 150-grit paper to get the nasty rough off.

I finish off with a 360-grit, to give it a nice smooth feel.

On my finer pieces, I'll go up to a 400, but anything more than that really isn't necessary for the "rustic" look I like.

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Then I transfer the design onto the spoon.

I do this using humble tracing paper, and a cheap No. 2 pencil.

Trace the design onto your tracing paper. Flip it over, and trace on the back.

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Flip it over again, put the back against the wood, and rub with your fingernail.

Graphite is an amazing thing, isn't it?

The nice thing about using this technique (besides the quickness of it) is that it doesn't leave score marks in your wood, like a pencil can.

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This is what you're left with.

Each tracing is good for about 6 transfers.
After that, you'll want to re-trace your design (lay down fresh graphite).

After about 24 transfers, the tracing paper wears out, and you have to make a new transfer.

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Time to burn!

This particular nib is a thin tip, and it acts very similarly to a tube of henna paste. In fact, the application technique is almost exactly the same.

Tip: Concentrate on rate, not pressure.

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Next, if necessary, "clean up."

Mistakes are inevitable, but that doesn't always mean you've ruined your piece. I use an Exacto-knife to gently scrape away minor errors.

This is another reason why you should keep a light pressure; shallow errors are easier to fix than deep ones.

Tip: Snap the tip off of the blade. This makes it easier to scrape the wood, and harder to gouge it.

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Finally, erase the graphite.

No one wants graphite in their food.

A pink eraser works best for this. It's firm, tough, and aggressive enough to hold its own against the wood.

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This is a good time to add sealer, oils, varnishes, waxes, or what have you.

Since I sell my spoons, and cooks are notoriously persnickety, I leave my spoons raw. Let's face it, for every cook that loves curing their spoons in olive oil, you'll have two that think olive oil is beastly; for every cook that swears by beeswax, you'll have three that consider it practically blasphemous. I prefer to leave the choice up to the customer.

I will say, though, that I've finished one of my personal spoons in beeswax (for cooking), and one for a customer in lemon oil (for decoration), and both looked lovely when done.

Happy burning!