Chestnut Leaves & Commissions

I have had a very busy week on the pyrography front. I started off by doing a sketch of some chestnut leaves for a bowl, but I had to put that on the back burner when I was commisioned to do a couple of plaques.

Commisions are strange, one minute you are doing your own thing and then all of a sudden life changes. You are no longer in charge of what you are doing and are working for somebody else. It's a bit like working in a factory but with out the journey.
Don't get me wrong, I like doing commisions because they help pay the bills but I wouldn't want to do them full time. I don't mind doing pyrography to order but deadlines can be quite daunting. Anyway, they are completed now and I should be able to get on and burn the leaves. Here is the sketch.

The first thing I did was to draw around the bowl to give me the exact size. Then I drew one leaf along the edge and repeated the pattern in an anti-clockwise direction. Everynow and again, I redrew a leaf to make it go under one of the others to give the design some depth. It looks quite a simple design, but there was a lot of rubbing out and redrawing to make sure it filled the bowl. I am looking forward to burning it with my pyrography iron and will show you the results in my next post, that is as long as a load of commisions don't get in the way.

Im my next post I will also say a bit about safety. The fumes that come from a pyrography iron can be dangerous, so now that I am doing more commisions I have taken action. Relying on a fan and an open window isn't good enough. However, I think I've found a cost effective solution.

My Wife's Work

Hi,
 In my last post, I mentioned that my wife had seen the pleasure I was getting from my pyrography and she decided that she was going to have a go herself. I also said I would show her efforts in this blog so I have dedicated this post to her work.

After doing a bit of pyrography on a bit of old scrapwood, she decided to take the plunge and do a Laburnum design on a chopping board. To say she was pleased with her effort would be an understatement because she was absolutely thrilled. Mind you, I did teach her well (he said with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek). Anyway, she was very pleased except for one thing, she was missing the colour that she normally has in her artwork.

It will come as no surpise then that after doing a bunch of grapes design on a small dish, she decided to paint it with her acrylic paints.

Again she was happy with the results and threw herself into doing a clematis on a wooden platter.

Considering that she hasn't done any pryrography before I think that what she has achieved is excellent and I will have to watch out or she will be overtaking me.