Pyrography: Adding Colour

Hi all,
In the hands of a skilled pyrographer the iron can be used to create an endless number of shades that give life and vibrancy to the image. The darkest colour tones, which can be almost black, are created by leaving the pyrography iron tip in one place for a longer period of time or by increasing the temperature setting of the iron.
However, some subjects are more easily brought to life with some subtle colour.
Having said that, care needs to be taken to not spoil the pyrography work by just colouring it in like a child's painting. Using colour with pyrography is definitely a case of where less, is more. Above you can see a fox that I did with my pyrography iron on a solid piece of wood. It really came to life after I'd used water soluble pencils to liven it up.Last week I showed a picture of a pyrography honey pot and that shows just about the limit of how far I would go with adding colour. A picture of the honey pot can be seen on the left. The bees and flowers were coloured using water soluble colour pencils. I then sprayed the pot with a can of vanish to seal the colours before brushing on a further two coats of vanish. The reason I sealed the colour with a spray varnish was because, if I'd used a brush to put varnish onto the watercolour pencils, it would have either smudged the colour or made it run. Once the spray varnish has dried, normal varnished can be brushed on without any danger of ruining the work.
Sometimes if a solid colour is required, like the red hearts on the trinket pot on the right, I will use artists' acrylic paint. However because I am painting directly onto wood I always use a base coat of white before putting the colour on top. This makes the final colour shine through and gives a much more vibrant finish..

I am currently working on another wildlife piece but this time I am using wax based coloured pencils to give it a bit of zing. If all goes well this week I will put a picture of it on my next post. Also in my next post I will explain how I go about creating the images that I use in my pyrography work.

If you would like to see some more of my pyrography work please click here.
If you would like to visit my discounted pyrography shop at folksy.com
Finally if you want to find out more details about me or my books please
click here.