Wood burning, Chloe inspired art

This afternoon I finished my work and was contemplating playing with some art.

Round here, it’s not about missing the tools, here in the studio there’s almost everything I would like to use, but the key ingredient usually is inspiration.

Chloe called me at the end of her class just to say hi and to check in, and I told her I’m a bit stuck. She suggested that I do a little wood burning.

OK then, I plugged in the three wood burning tools here in the studio, and quickly discovered one I liked above the other two. I grabbed a piece of wood support (which I painted a little oil glaze over as a start of something…and promptly totally forgot about), sanded the paint down a bit, (probably ended up inhaling 32 different toxins) and drew out a little design.

Now, I’m still set on our drawing challenge: deer, and so a sunset forest came to mind.

Then it was just a matter of sketching out a little something in pencil and laboriously burning the design into it with the wood burning tool.

Whew, not my favourite medium, and I’m sure that again I breathed in 32 different toxins by the time I was finished.

But easy to get the hang of. Once you’re holding the wood burning tool in your hand, it’s easy to figure out how to make face-on straight lines, or lay sideways fat burned marks. Everything sort of homogenises into a lovely image. Try it, you’ll get the hang of it really quickly.

But look! After a quick, simple glaze with some gloss medium, look how lovely it looks next to my computer and overlooking all the work I have to complete.

Wood burning. Not my favourite, but definitely a wonderful art mind break.