Damselflies

Hi all
I have had a design rumbling about in my head for a while, so I decided I'd get it out of my system by burning it into some wood with my pyrography iron.
I also had some spare plaques that I have been using to make table centre pieces so I thought I would do the pyrography on one of them. Doing round designs is fun because you have to ensure that the image looks good from all sides.

Anyway, the pyrography design I had in my mind was of  some damselflies and some reeds.

Step 1 I started by drawing around the outside of the plaque to give me the correct size.
Step 2 I drew two damselflies; one with the wings open and one with them shut. See the picture below.

Step 3 I scanned the drawing into photoshop, then copied and pasted another damselfly with its wings open. I could have done more, but I think three suited the design that was in my head.
Step 4 I cut and pasted all three damselflies. This gave time the ability to be able to move them about and position them anywhere I liked on the drawing by using the 'move' tool.
Step 5 When that was done, I printed a copy off and drew in some reeds.
Step 6 Once I was happy with the position of the reeds and, the composition as a whole, I scanned the image again. See below.

The reason I scanned it again was to get a copy onto my computer so that it if I wanted to use the design again it would be readily available. Here is the finished design.  Please feel free to run a copy off for your own use (Non-commercial) if you would like to have a go. If you do, I would love to see a picture of the results.

Step 7 I used tracedown paper to transfer the image to the plaque so that I could start the pyrography process.

At the time of writing the pyrography was almost complete. However, I have it in my mind to use a bit of colour on the damselflies and will show you them in my next post in a few days.

If you would like to see some more of my pyrography work please follow this link http://www.shirewriting.co.uk/
If you wold like to find out more about my books please follow this link http://www.georgefmason.co.uk/