Having described in my last post how I create images, I thought it might be useful to explain where I get my images from in the first place.
One thing you shouldn't do is infringe another person's copyright. The leaves on the clock pictured left are entirely my own creation and that is what we should all be striving to do when creating pyrography pieces.
Being an artist and author myself I can tell you now that I would take a very dim view of anybody copying my work, especially if they tried to pass it off as their own. Where possible I always try to work from my own sketches or my own photographs. By doing this I don't have to worry about copyright infringements because everything I create is my own.
When I first started doing some pyrography I bought a popular book on the subject and started going through the exercises in the book. Most of my efforts turned out well and, as I progressed, I created a very nice piece that was based on one of the exercises in the book. Being like most artists, I like to show off my work and thought it would look nice on my art website amongst some of my paintings. However, being wary of copyright infringement I found the e-mail address of the publisher at the front of the book and sought permission to display the work on my website. I thought I'd get an e-mail back in a couple of days saying go ahead. After all I thought it would be good publicity for their book. How silly was I, it took no less than three months to get an answer and, although it was yes, it came with the following conditions.
I could display the work on 1 website only
I must not offer the work for sale
I must acknowledge the author of the book
I must mention the publisher
I must provide them with half a pint of blood. (Only joking but you get my drift)
Anyway, after this experience I decided to concentrate on my own images. Having said that, there are some images that you can copy from anywhere and I doubt anybody will know where the original came from. Images of butterflies, birds and flowers for instance are so common and available that nobody would know where you got the image from.
Take the Peacock butterfly that I did on the book marker on the right. It is copied from one of my own photos but you will find images in books and on the Internet that could all provide the same source. By the time you've burnt it into a bit of wood with your pyrography iron, who on earth is going to know where it came from?
I would advise anyone who is taking up pyrography to take lots of photographs and use them for the basis of their work. Sometimes my wife and I take our sketch books with us when we drive out into the countryside. We pick some interesting wild flowers and then sketch them. I also keep a small sketch book in the car and when my wife pops into a shop for something quick (For quick, read at least 20minutes)I get out my pencil and do some sketching of trees or whatever other bits of flora and fauna are available. On the left you can see a bookmarker that was based on a birch twig that I sketched whilst my wife had popped into a shop. The eagle eyed amongst you might notice that I burnt the word Beech into it, well we can all make mistakes and it is an unfortunate thing about pyrography. You need to be careful because you can't rub them out or paint them over.
You will find that using your own photos or sketches will enhance your feeling of achievement.
The latest Item I have been working on seems to have been taking me forever, but it is finally coming to an end. I will share it with you in my next post.
If you would like to see some of my pyrography please click here
Information about me and my books can be found here
No comments:
Post a Comment