Monday, March 11, 2013

Wood-burning and Watercolors

And now, for something completely different....


I have had this box for years.  Many years.  I received it one Christmas when I also got a wood-burner.  Although, I used the wood-burner for several projects, but never got around to this.  Recently, I decided to give it a go.


To me, wood-burning (or "pyrography" if you will) is both fun and slightly terrifying.  You basically have a super-heated stylus that you use to draw on the piece of wood.  Occasionally, carbon builds up on the tip and emits some sparks.  For this project, I used a regular number 2 pencil to draw the design (inspired by a Tiffany window at the Met called "Dogwood").  Then, I went over it with the wood-burner.  


I used a regular colored pencil in white for some of the petals, but for the rest I used water color pencils.  I love these, and I think they worked out well for this project.  For the most part, I used them dry, then went over it with a wet brush, but for some of the more pigmented sections of the background, I used the pencil on sections that were fairly damp.  I touched up a few places with dry colored pencils at the end.  Although not perfect (the "frame" in particular got a bit messy in places), I am pretty pleased with this project, and plan to try a few more wood-burning/colored pencil projects.  So, what do I put in my fancy new box? 


Lipstick.

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