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The Discovery of Pyrography

Danielle Dixon tells WWC how she took up the art of burning wood and shares a step-by-step guide to her technique

As a young girl I was always interested in nature within art and the wider environment, which led me to study illustration at art school. At this stage most of my artwork was in the medium of oil painting. I realised that the pressure of working to deadlines was not for me, so I began volunteer work at Trevarno Gardens in Cornwall. The work inspired me to study horticulture and I began the Royal Horticulture Society course and earned a place a RHS Wisley where I completed the Wisley diploma. I was very fortunate to be able to return to Cornwall to the post of Head Gardner at Enys Gardens, near Penryn, Cornwall.

About six years ago, by chance I discovered pyrography. I was considering alternative methods to make permanent, tasteful labels for the garden plants, not the ugly white plastic labels. Taking advice from the gardens’ Woodsman, who kindly made up some durable chestnut posts and plaques, I burnt the plant names into the plaques with a soldering iron. After a top coat of varnish, I produced my first plant label using pyrography. I still had no idea what pyrography really was or indeed that such art skills existed. Soldering irons are not particularly practical for pyrography because they do not have a temperature control and are therefore very limited in scope for the more delicate work of shade control. My iron got very hot to hold and after a while of continuous use it burnt out.

For Christmas, a friend gave me a new soldering iron and an example of a pyrograph picture, a wooden plaque with a picture of a dog burnt onto it, and told me that I could do better. This was the inspiration I needed. Armed with only a soldering iron and a few pieces of plywood from a local craft shop, I made my first attempts at real pyrography. But the combination of no heat control and plywood were not very successful. The wood was too burnt and unable to hold a clean edge to a line. After further discussions with the gardens’ Woodsman as to what wood might be more suited for pyrography, I tried a piece of wany edge lime wood from the gardens’ woods. The wood’s pale colour and faint grain pattern do not detract from the artwork.

I sanded the surface flat and smooth, similar to textured paper and began work on a picture of an orangutan’s face in profile. Working with the soldering iron was difficult, I was unable to achieve the shade control I wanted, lines tended to blur together, the iron’s tip is large and not suited to fine detail and far too hot to hold comfortable. Still, I was extremely pleased with my first picture.

I researched pyrography and discovered that it was a ‘real thing’ with purpose-built tools. I invested in a Peter Child set, because it had different, interchangeable shaped nibs. Working predominantly with the spoon-shaped attachment for larger areas and a nib for finer detail I produced other work. But the nibs still were not fine enough for the delicate detail I wanted to achieve, so I purchased some wire and made my own nibs for the detail work.

I had by now joined the local college’s evening class in woodcarving. Their brilliant teacher, the late David James, asked me to bring in my work to show the class. One of his students, John Samworth, invited me to demonstrate my technique to the Cornwall Wood Carvers, which I did. This day changed my skill levels dramatically. David had a Firefly machine, different to mine, which he brought along; not only did it have a temperature control ranging from 0 (cold) to 10 (max) but also a selection of nibs including a scalpel-type nib. He kindly let me borrow his machine and with it I am now able to draw really detailed work.

1. Plant label created for Enys Gardens, Cornwall
2. Orangutan portrait on lime wood: an early example of Danielle’s work
3. Lamb Feeding
4. The Girl
5. The Firefly pyrography machine which allows for more detailed work

Pyrography technique

1. If you’d like to try pyrography for yourself, here’s a step-by-step guide to making a picture of a sheep. Choose your piece of wood, this is a wany edge lime about 150mm square. Sand the surface to a reasonable degree of flatness and smoothness to suit your design. Lightly draw the outline of your design on the wood using medium pencil
2. Select a spoon-shaped nib (this is a general nib I use for general shading of areas) and set it to a low 3 temperature setting; just hot enough to leave a mark. I found an early mistake I made with pyrography was going in too dark at the start and then not being able to adjust the tone. Always begin in lighter tones and build up colour and shade in layers. My technique is similar to pencil sketching, to block cover areas I use small circular strokes, going over lightly several times to slowly build up the colour
3. With the machine set as above, and using broad strokes, begin to shade in the background tones to the piece, working the nib over the area. Avoid any areas which you want to remain the original wood colour, especially around the eyes, face, neck and left-hand side (in the light). It is not easy to remove the marks afterwards. The usable temperature range on this machine is 2.5 (too cold, leaves no mark) and 5.5 (too hot, burns very quickly)
4. Next, with the same nib, turn the temperature a little higher (on my machine up 3.5 to 4) and develop the darker shaded areas. Here the marks are a mixture of blocked sections and individual lines. Dark shadowed areas are now forming and contrast clearly against the original pale wood colour
5. Turn the dial up a little further to around 4 to do more darker shaded areas, still avoiding the light areas. Here, I am working over a knot (by the foot) which can affect the tone, so be careful over those areas
6. Now switch the nibs – here I am swapping over to the scalpel-type nib which allows me to introduce fine detail marks. Let the nib cool before swapping and don’t burn your fingers
7. Using individual nib strokes work close up starting again on the lower setting on the dial around 4.2, working lighter to dark. Here, I’m working the hair on the sheep’s head
8. For the first stage of using the scalpel tool, start with individual, short line marks to add the fleece texture
9. Turning the dial temperature up to around 4.5, begin darkening up the shadow areas with small strokes, adding the fleece texture and detail around the eyes and nose
10. Turning the dial temperature up to around 5 and working again on the fleece, eyes and nose with the fine nib. Don’t forget to darken the belly area in dark shadow
11. On temperature setting 5.2, add the final detail to the fleece, eyes and nose
12. Swap the nib back to the spoon type and begin to rough in the shade on the background. The sky area is slightly darkened with broad strokes to emphasise the light area of the sheep’s wool. The grass area is built up in a selection of tones using short, individual strokes
13. Swap the nib back to the scalpel type to put the final bit of detail into the grass. Putting all the background in allows the sheep’s fleece to stand out (the bit that has not been burnt)

Further reading

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