Pyrography

I've got a friend at work who does the most amazing work with pyrography. She's even featured in a book on the subject. I'll ask her when I see her at work tomorrow what tips she'd give.

Aaw brilliant, thank you =)

I didn't get to see her Thursday and I'm on holiday for 2 weeks now so I've trawled my brain to remember what she said when she did some pyrography with my art group. We worked on wooden spoons to start with as you can pick them up cheap and they're small. Try and keep strokes smooth and consistent (i.e. keep the same pressure and speed) as you end up with uneven burning. I've also seen her build up layers to get darker, rather than press harder for longer. I think it gets a more even colour. She also draws out in pencil what she's going to do so she has some guidelines to work with. The things you work on need to be unvarnished. She also works on chopping boards, other wooden kitchen utensils and pieces of wood she gets cut for her at a hardware shop. She also uses stencils for lettering if she's doing something that needs that kind of look. I hope that helps.

I have a pyrography kit that I used to use but I haven't used in a looong time! I think I did some things on like leather key rings and wooden spoons. I suppose you could do it on anything wooden or leather really. You could even make a door sign or something.

Apparently you have to be careful with the leather because if it's been treated it'll be poisonous when burnt. Eep! I'm just gonna burn a ton of wooden stuff to take to uni - I like the idea of a personalised chopping board and such