After finishing up my previous DIY watercolour block experiment, I decided to switch things up a bit with a wood burning. It has been some time since I last worked one, however, the source of the inspiration sprang from the canvas itself. Ever the artistic packrat, I’ve had a wooden clock face stashed away in my supplies for a few years now.

The design of the wood invokes the forest and nature with the bark lined edges and tree trunk shape. Using that as a starting point for deciding on a theme, birds first came to mind. However, I’ve drawn birds many times before and wanted to try my hand at something different. It was around this time I was reading the book, The Bears of Blue River. The book itself was not my favourite read, however, it did provide the inspiration behind my subject – a bear.

I wanted to choose an image and composition that would provide a challenge and facilitate artistic growth. A simple bear existing in the woods would be too easy, so I decided upon a bear fishing in water. The water droplets, wet fur, the action of holding a fish - I felt it all would provide an excellent and educational pyrography challenge.

Challenge Accepted!

Before doing anything on the actual wood, I first drew out a rough draft. I like to draw out the image in pencil first and then once I am 100% happy with it, use transfer paper to draw it onto the wood. I didn’t want to make an exact copy of someone else’s photographic, so I did my best to sift through various reference photos of bears and create my own image. I also took some time to understand how wet fur looks in an image and how water looks running off of it. This wont be a hyper realistic image, but I hope the end result is still something pleasant to look at.

I started with the eyes and face. Sometimes I like to get the hardest part or the most important part out of the way first. It’s an awful feeling to pour hours into a pieces and irreversibly mess up an integral part of it. I much rather have that kind of mistake at the start, so if it needs to be scrapped the blow is softened.

Thankfully, the face came out okay. I admit, as the every critical artist that I am, I am not 100% happy with it. However, I do think it’s passable for now. I hope that as I continue to work on it and build around the areas I’m not fond of, those trouble spots will fade into the background.

Work in Progress

There is still much in the image I haven’t touched yet. I am trying to take my time and slowly build up tone. With pyrography you can generally always go darker, but you can never go lighter. I also I have be mindful of small details that can easily get drawn over if I’m not paying attention.

The bear’s face aside, the next challenge will be the water he’s standing in. I am both looking forward to and apprehensive about being able to skillfully create jostled waves with my burning pen. As of right now, I am not super concerned with the fish. I may save him as the last pieces of the puzzle.

The only other aspect of the image that I haven’t given much thought to has been the background. There isn’t a ton of real estate for the background, but it seems boring to just leave it blank. There are also number placements to consider, as this is a clock face after all.

Having Fun

However this project turns out in the end, the important part is I am 100% enjoying it right now. Wood burning is an amazing medium and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves drawing with pen or pencil. Many of the skills utilized for those can be utilized in pyrography as well.

Hopefully I’ll have a beary nice piece of artwork to show off in a future blog. Until next time, I wish you all the best in your artistic endeavors and encourage you to challenge yourself too! :]