It's been a long hard slog but at last I have finished the boat. I guess it's taken me about a month and I'm glad it is done. When I started this project all I had in mind was a boat on a shingle beach, but then I added some lobster pots in the bottom left hand corner to give it some balance. However, there was still a bit of a blank space on either side, so I put a harbour wall on one side and a lighthouse on the other. You perhaps can't see it very clearly in the picture below, but the grain of the wood looks like the waves on the sea behind the boat.
When I was about half-way through, I thought of perching a seagull on the top of the boat, but in the end I decided against it. With the viewpoint I'd adopted for the boat the scaling of a seagull would prove to be difficult plus I wanted to keep the boat as the focal point. In the end I was pleased with the result but I'm going to stick to smaller projects in the future. The boat picture measures 14 inches x 11 inches and that is a hell of a lot of pyrography. To finish the job off I have mounted the picture in a recycled frame that has a bit of a distressed look and I thought it suited the subject perfectly.
Beside the tedious work of burning every individual stone on the beach, the shading in of the boat's hull also took a lot of work. When shading in, it is easy to get dark burn blobs all over the place, I wanted to avoid these but at the same time have the temperature set high enough so that the task wouldn't take forever. The secret, when using a high temperature is to blow on your pyrography iron tip as you put it onto the wood and then move it about quickly and whatever you do don't slow down or stop. Keep your pyrography iron moving at a constant pace and your shading will have a consistent and even tone. By the way, just a reminder that all of the work on this project was done with a spoon tip. I can't imagine what the results would look like if I tried using a wire tip.
If you are using a Peter Child's machine I really would advice you to get some spoon tips. They may be more expensive than wire but they really do make a difference.
Selling Your Stuff
Last week I said I'd tell you about some other websites where you might want to try selling your pyrography work. I came across these when looking to see what alternatives there are to using Folksy.com
http://www.notonthehighstreet.com This is one of the first websites I checked out, but although it looks great for crafts people and pyrographers, they weren't up front with their costs. They deal in lifetime memberships and the only way to find out how much it costs, is to send them an e-mail with details about what you do. They will then propose a suitable package for you. That isn't the way I like to do business, so I gave them the swerve. However, that doesn't mean they might not be right for you.
http://www.coriandr.com This appears to be UK based and looks like good value for money. The cost of listing an item is 20p and commission is only 2.5% of sales.
http://www.zibbet.com This is a USA based website that, unlike all the others, has a section for woodburning and, according to the website, the first 50 items can be listed for free so it could be worth checking out in more detail.
http://www.etsy.com This is a very big player in the field of selling crafts and artwork. They are USA based but I know a lot of people in the UK used them. Their fees are $0.20 per 4 month listing and 3.5% in commision from each sale.
http://www.misi.co.uk I like the sound of this one and may give it a try myself soon. They are UK based and although they charge 20p per listing it does last for a 12 month period. Put that together with a low commission rate of 3% and it looks attractive.
My advice would be to check out the websites yourself because things may have changed by the time you read this post. Then search the Internet to see what other sites you can find. However, before you sign up with anybody consider the following.
Which county your live in and in which country you expect to make the most sales?
Will you be listing lots of items or just a few?
Does the site have a thriving forum?
Does the website promote itself and its sellers?
When I answered the above questions, I ended up making my shop here, http://www.burningdesire.folksy.com They may not be perfect, but they do a pretty good job.
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