Hare Again

Hi All,
I said last week that I was going to do another pyrography hare with the contours, so here it is.

I like the way it turned out and the simplicity of it. The phrase, 'sometimes less is more' is pretty well worn, but in this case it seems to fit. I got the frame from a charity shop and used that to size the piece of white birch veneer that I was going to do the pyrography on. This was then ironed onto a piece of MDF.

I'm still not sure about using MDF because of the health implication if one inhales the dust when working with it. The only solution I have is to do any cutting and sanding outside and hopefully the dust will get lost on the wind.

Anyway, after I'd used my pyrography iron to burn the outline of the hare, I drew the contours on freehand with a pencil. These were then subsequently burnt. Care needs to be taken when going around the curves and I find that it is best to do several short marks rather then trying to burn a long line in one go. Even when using veneer the grain of the wood can easily make the tip of a pyrography iron go off course and if two contour lines end up touching it ruins the whole effect.

The direction of the grain in a piece of wood needs to be taken into account when doing any pyrography work. I find that it is easy to maintain a straight line when burning a line that is 90 degrees to the grain, but keeping that line straight becomes increasingly difficult as I move around to going with the grain.

Whilst we are talking about grain, I also think that consideration should be given to matching the direction of the grain to the subject you are working on. For example, because the hare is running, I think it makes sense to have it going with the grain. It wouldn't work as well with the grain going the other way. If on the other hand I was to do a picture of a tree or a flower, I'd want the grain to go with the direction of growth so that it didn't jar the eye.

I'm not sure what my next project will be, but I will let you know soon. By the way, if anybody is interested, the hare is for sale on Folksy at a reasonable price.