Taking Shape

I have a new challenge ahead of me!  I got a special order today for a piece that is to be shaped like the animal that will be portrayed on the wood!  I've been going over the steps in my head...  Find good pine at least 2 feet square, sketch out the shape, cut, bevel edges, sand like crazy, burn.
Now I just hope it all turns out like I envision it!
It's going to be of a sea turtle, which means I'll be able to get a lot of detail on the shell (my favorite part).  My last sea turtle special order was on an 11x14" plaque.

This new one will be a 2 foot long piece, head to flippers.  Good thing I have a few weeks to finish it!

Plywood Problems

So after a few months of doing wood burning and now adding it permanently to my product line, I realized that I didn't have anything about it on my business cards.  I had ordered 500 cards not long ago, and now, of course, I have to order new ones.  It's just like when you finally break down and order address labels - you move two months later.  Isn't it always the case?

So I though, I'm going to be creative with my cards this time!  I got a piece of extremely thin birch plywood, the kind you can only get in craft stores.  I measured out the right size for a business card and then doubled it.  I then worked on wood burning 'Furry Friend', my most popular ink image, onto the wood as a background and then would ink in my information.  All good in theory.

What birch plywood is not good for - wood burning.  Big surprise.  It's almost as back as basswood.  I worked far too long on this piece, but finally got it to work to my liking!

Then I inked on my info and uploaded the image!  My cards have supposedly shipped, but I haven't seen then yet.  I just hope they get here before my next event!  Never again will I use birch plywood unless Absolutely Necessary!

Get a Grip

Displaying one plaque is simple enough.  You either hang it on your wall or place it on a tabletop easel.  No problem.  But what about when you have thirty or forty?  This was the problem I encountered when I started to put together enough plaques for a show.  You don't want them all laying down flat on a table, no one would see them.  And to get enough little easels for that many plaques is a bit draining on the checking account.  So what do I do?  I create a custom display.

To hold several plaques of varying sizes and shapes I needed something that would grip the plaques securely, without damaging the wood, and without covering up any of the design.  After a long, arduous search I finally found what I'd been looking for!  It's a clear plastic shelf tag strip.  Normally it would slide on over the front of a wooden shelf and have a space along the front to slide in your shelf tags.  Well I put it face-down and screwed it to a burlap-covered 2x4.  I propped one edge of the 2x4 up on shims to give it a bit of an angle and the plaques are then at the perfect position.

And voila!  The images are visible, the plaques are held securely, and there's no limit to the size or shape of plaque it will hold!
*happy dance*

Amber Streaks of Grain

As I've worked to get more minute detail into my plaques, tone is very important.  This means that even the streaks of darker grain that are natural to the wood can affect your finished piece.  Shading something like a person's face means being very subtle in your color and tone variations.  So if the grain of the wood has some darker veins, you have to compensate with your heat to keep your colors even.  For example:

Though it can add character to the piece, it can also be distracting.  Therefore, when you want to do something with very subtle shading, you have to use a piece of wood that's much more blond and pure.  Like this:

This way you can create your lines and shading with little interruption from the natural wood grain.

The other issue with the darker streaks in the wood grain is finding the right product to seal your wood with, so that it's not just a bare piece of wood that will stain easily and show grime.  If you were to use a standard polyurethane, it would soak into the wood, bringing out the grain much more noticeably.  This is good for when you're sealing   say... a piece of furniture, but not when you only want to highlight your burned image on a plaque.  Bringing out the grain that clearly can distort your image and change your shading.

The miracle product I've discovered works the best is mineral oil!  I use the heavy variety and rub it in with a soft cloth.  This not only moisturizes the wood, but it also seals it and brings out a more vibrant, lustrous look in the burning.  It's safe to use with your bare hands and won't leave a residue on anything once it's soaked into the wood.  See the difference between these two pictures...

The top one was plain, untreated wood.  The bottom one was rubbed with heavy mineral oil.  Everything is so much more vibrant and has so much depth.  And yes, they are the same plaque - before and after.  And the wood grain didn't change in darkness either!  Who knew a medicine-aisle laxative treatment would be so perfect for artwork!

One of these things is not like the other...

Whenever I look at other artist's work in wood burning I seem to find two distinct categories.  Both are beautiful and take talent to do, but they are such polar opposites that the finished product of each looks like a different medium altogether.  I've experimented in both and both get the same amount of attention most of the time.  Here is one style - very straightforward, heavy lines, simplistic:

In this style you don't have the aggravation of shading or any kind of 3D effect, but it's bold and striking all the same.

Here is one that is a mixture of both simplistic lines and some more intricate shading:

Here you get some different tones and a more 3D effect, but with the boldness of heavy lines.

The style that takes infinitely more time but has a very appealing outcome with tons of detail and a very realistic appearance is this:

Here you have more issues with light and shadow.  To achieve a more realistic image you have to give it contour.  The roundness of the tentacles and the intricacies of the barnacles require a lot of attention to detail and correct shading to make them look 3D and realistic.  Just like in many forms of two-dimensional art, you have to pay attention to which direction your light is coming from and only highlight that which is touched by the light.  Shadows are incredibly important when attempting to do any kind of realism.  If the human eye cannot perceive the details of an object in shadow in real life, then don't try to depict those details in your art.  Sometimes what is hidden and dark, with absolutely no detail within it, is what makes a piece intriguing. 

In wood burning this can be tricky due to the grain of the wood or uneven shadowing.  When you have no intention of creating shapes or variance in tones, the wood can sometimes do it for you.  Most of the time this avoidable, but again - you have to have patience.  Damn it.

Which wood would do

I have this dream where one day I'll have a shop with tons of tools in it so that I'll be able to craft anything that strikes my fancy.  Not the least of which, of course, is any size or shape plaque I want.  And I'm not talking about some dinky little flat piece of wood, I'd do it all - the beveled edges and everything.  *sigh*  Someday, right?

For now I must buy my plaques at craft stores.  Well, one craft store.  It turns out that the only place within a thirty mile radius to buy the blank, unfinished plaques, is Michael's.  And the Michael's forty miles away doesn't even carry them.  I have this latent fear that one day I'll be in desperate need to restock and Michael's will have discontinued them entirely.  Oh wait - I take it back - you can find them at JoAnn's down the road, but they only get the lower grade ones.

This is my dilemma - I'm super picky about what pieces I get.  I learned my lesson after one such unhappy piece I bought very early on.  As you can see...

The problem here is that there was a grey tone through the middle of the plaque.  Little did I know that it would make my color bleed and make Inara look like she got beat up.  This is why I pretty much only use pine, and only clean, pristine pine at that.  Occasionally even a beautiful piece of wood can have little veins of extra resin. As soon as you put heat to that vein it boils the resin and darkens the wood around it.  Just one of the many little hiccups you can encounter in wood burning.

I have tried one other kind of wood... basswood.  Normally used for carving.  And that is all it will ever be used for.  Normally, in wood burning, you can get the wood to be nearly black if you work hard enough (or are careless enough), but basswood is like Scotchgard carpet - work hard enough and you can make it take some color, but it's nearly impossible to eclipse the tone completely.  Below is the basswood piece I attempted - to get the background as dark as I did, it took three extremely slow passes over the wood instead of one.

As is more and more common nowadays, I could always buy my plaques online and possibly even get a better price.  However, knowing the potential flaws and how hard it is sometimes to find pieces that are desirable, I think I'll keep cherry picking.

All in Good Taste

As I do more and more wood burnings, I expand my range and keep trying new things, new subjects.  But I gotta say, it really makes you wonder if the things you like and think are pretty or interesting actually appeal to the masses.  Art is funny that way.  Two people could absolutely love the same article of clothing or piece of furniture, but detest each other's taste in art.

Every photo I choose to use as a subject for my wood burning has to have that extra something special about it.  If it doesn't strike me as beautiful or captivating in some way then not only does it not turn out as good in the end, but I don't even enjoy doing it as much.  The exception here is when someone requests a specific image.  As soon as it means something to someone else, I love it as much as they do and put my heart and soul into the work.  I'm curious if I'll ever come across an image I truly detest, no matter its importance to the buyer?

This morning I tried using my scanner to get higher quality pictures of my finished work.  This is both convenient and a test of bravery.  With a standard camera you can get a clear picture of the work, but sometimes the details are lost and in some cases that can make it look better that it does in person.  But when you take a 600 dpi scan of the piece, there is no loss of detail and you're forced to showcase the piece and all its potential flaws.  So now there are two tests of bravery - Showcase your work and all its imperfections, and pray that people actually find your tastes appealing.  For example:

One of the biggest aggravations with being uncertain about your choices of subjects, is the fact that if you follow through with an image that's questionable, you could potentially waste an entire day on a piece of crap.  It's like slaving all day in the kitchen over Thanksgiving dinner, only to discover that the food is all spoiled.  Questionable in the first place and unappetizing in the end.

So you pull opinions from all sources and take countless suggestions and hope that you've successfully weeded out the poorer options.  The trick here is to not discount an idea simply because you think you aren't capable.  Always challenge yourself to do better, to learn.  You may find that someone else's taste is actually yours too.    

Making Pine Pretty

Since January 2012, I have been reigniting my interest in wood burning.  Everything started out very simple and now, seventy pine plaques and two holes melted through my throw blankets later, I have achieved this feat!

I start by finding a photo that catches my interest.  Then I sketch the basic outline of the image onto the plaque of choice.  After that it's several hours of patient shading.  Of course my hope in all of this is to show my work to the world.  Whenever you spend this many tedious hours hard at work at something you truly love, you kind of want to show it off.

This summer I have several faires and events that I'll be attending, selling my work.  So far I've done three.  The first one was a bigger success than I anticipated and so it spurred me on to keep at it.  The second was a total bust and the third got so many compliments that my face hurt from smiling so much.  Unfortunately the compliments were verbal and not monetary.  You just never can predict the buying habits of people at art shows.  

To illustrate a little better how far I've come and what I've worked to accomplish, here's one of my first plaques: 

Now, granted this one was only a 3"x5" as opposed to a 7"x9", which means you can't get the detail as intricate - but it's a marked difference.

In between events this summer I'll be working to restock and keep up my back stock - but of course this is intermixed with special orders, too.  Friends and family have requested custom pieces, and I find that I enjoy doing those much more.  I put extra care into them to ensure that they turn out with the highest quality.  My profile picture is one such special order.  Here's a larger version of it: 

This was a horse a friend of mine had when she was growing up.  She had a standard 3x5 photo and I made this 8 1/2" x 11" plaque from it.  Like I said, the bigger the plaque, the more detail you get

So on I go!  I can't wait to see what people request and what I can create for them!
You want one?