Wood burning drawing for beginners. Wood burning: sketches for people with different skill levels, help for beginners and ideas for experienced pyrographers

"Writing with fire" - this is how the word "pyrography" is literally translated, denoting one of the areas of arts and crafts. Sketches for burning are applied not with a pencil or a brush, but with a special soldering device with nozzles of different diameters. Such a device, powered by a network, is called a pyrograph. In order for the desired image to appear on the header, in addition to sketch drawings, stencils and templates are used.

Methods for burning drawings

Sketches are called preliminary drawings with clear contour lines, along which master burners apply the image to the base. They reflect the main idea, the concept of work:

  • color and light planning;
  • composition;
  • proportionality of forms;
  • plot component.

Stencils are also used, the main function of which is to apply complex compositions to a wooden surface. The more carefully the sketch or template is worked out, the better and more professional the result will be.

Unfortunately, not all pyrographers are high-class artists - mostly they are lovers of creating something with their own hands, people who gravitate towards beauty and grace, but are far from perfect pencil skills.

Beginners who are just starting to dive into this fascinating field of study can be advised to use the following methods:

  • set a search on the Internet for a picture of interest and print it on a printer;
  • visit a large market selling goods for needlework and creativity, and choose from a wide range of any set for burning you like, with ready-made templates, stencils and sketches;
  • alternatively, you can find a similar product in a highly specialized online store and place an order.

The last two options require some financial costs, but the first one is quite economical and affordable. It is often resorted to by needlewomen and craftsmen in a variety of hand-made areas. Even without the necessary equipment - a printer, it will not be difficult to implement your idea using photocopying services in any photo printing salon or stationery store.

A variety of topics and a wide range of applications in various household areas put pyrography on a par with the most popular types of crafts.

If we turn to the times of the Soviet past, we can recall that burning out was one of the popular activities for schoolchildren. Club activities in the homes of pioneers, labor lessons in schools were often devoted to this applied form of creativity. Boys and girls gladly burned out a variety of pictures for their mothers, fathers, friends.

Now this direction, gaining strength, is being reborn, as it were, adapting to modern realities. Fresh interesting topics appear, tools and technologies for applying images are modernized. With their help, professionals create masterpieces art on wood.

Popular stories

Perhaps the most acceptable place where the pyrography technique harmoniously fits into the interior was, is and remains a sauna. This is facilitated by the excellent combination and uniformity of the material - wood, which, by the way, often remains after the construction of a steam room and can be successfully used as a raw material for wood burning. There are many sketches for a bath, as well as original ideas for decorating bath accessories and supplies. These are plot panels, shelves, hangers, plates with inscriptions. After all, there is nothing better for a bath than an inviting atmosphere that inspires visitors to rest and relax.

For example, signs with slogans of invitations and wishes for a light couple would be good to hang on the doors. Decorate the walls with funny plot pictures that correspond to the spirit of the steam room and, of course, place a panel with the image of the owner of the institution - Bannik. The transformed steam room will delight its regulars and attract new steam lovers to visit.

Bath furniture is also decorated with burning, using for this purpose clichés of floral ornaments, depicting mainly oak and birch leaves, as elements of the main paraphernalia of the steam room's wellness procedures.

Ornamental patterns are also used for beautiful openwork frames - frames. For wood burning, you can find a wide variety of samples.

Patterns for frames

Ornaments contain the following elements:

  • vegetable;
  • combined - flora and fauna;
  • religious, ethnic, protective symbols;
  • geometric.

Their uniting component is the rhythm of the pattern.

Any images in a frame always have a complete, concise look. Exquisitely decorated, they are used to frame mirrors, photographs, portraits, panels, congratulatory texts, cutting boards.

It is important to know that the art of pyrography is a very painstaking task. The application of such complex, ornate, repetitive patterns requires increased attention and effort. You can look at a small example of how you can burn out an ornamental frame yourself.

Tools and materials:

  • Burning soldering iron;
  • wooden base;
  • a sketch of the frame selected and printed on paper. (It is more convenient to use a stencil, as this will greatly simplify the work. The pattern will not need to be drawn, just trace with a pencil along the cut out contour);
  • copy paper of any color;
  • masking tape;
  • simple pencil.

Step by step work:

Thus, by correctly fulfilling all the wishes, you can achieve great success and become a real master of wood burning.

Animal sketches

Which of the artists or children does not like to draw animals and birds? These are unlikely to be found. Children, for the most part, choosing a drawing on a free topic, prefer to depict animals, especially heroes of their favorite cartoons.

A great artist lives in every child, which is why it is so easy for children to get carried away with drawing. Instilling a love for pyrography will also not be special work- only for birthdays or new year holidays to time a gift in the form of a set for burning.

The first creation of a child will be a wonderful decoration for a child's room. It can be some cute dog or kitten, bird or butterfly - it doesn't matter. Another thing is valuable: the child chooses a living being. He gives his love to his pet - he takes care of him, plays with him, and captures him in a graphic image. Boys especially love horses, dogs, predators - lions, tigers, wolves, bears. From fantastic characters - dragons and dinosaurs. Girls, on the other hand, are more gentle creatures: chanterelles, hedgehogs, deer.

Animal templates are diverse both in appearance and style of execution - from primitive schematic and silhouette forms to voluminous, picturesque highly artistic figures.

Also, young figures are interested in fairy-tale images: Gray wolf, Firebird and Serpent Gorynych, Kikimory, Leshy and many others.

The background for our younger brothers is often beautiful landscape views - their natural habitat. Therefore, burning sketches of nature in paintings is not in last place. The presence of the landscape creates a special flavor and gives vitality to the work. This is especially evident when, having completed the main part of the work, they proceed to the most interesting thing - color overlay. After all, scorched paintings do not always remain in black and white, sometimes they are supplemented with color shades.

Nature theme

The beauty of nature can inspire any creative person, and pyrograph artists are no exception. Drawing their ideological ideas from the vast naturalistic ocean, they boldly embody them in decorating not only the walls of the room, but also furniture, dishes, and household items. Modern advanced tools allow us to talk about such a direction as miniature pyrography.

This kind of decoration will look great in the country or in the interior. wooden houses. Adherents of a natural lifestyle and eco-style lovers will surely find a lot of interesting and original crafts both for themselves and to bring additional charm to their home.

Such a gift can surprise the most demanding connoisseur of beauty. In addition, a hobby can become a source of additional income if the hobby develops into a serious occupation.

In the vastness of the worldwide web, you can create a mini-site with an offer of your products or a page on the famous "Fair of Masters", posting new items there.

Everything will depend on the desire, skill, and most importantly, patience in mastering the art of “drawing with fire”.

Image Transfer Methods

Among the burners, there are still disputes about drawing a picture on a wood canvas. Most tend to the old, time-tested method - copying. It is more suitable for beginners and children. But professionals prefer an alternative method to it - hatching on the wrong side. It has very weak, barely outlined contours, which subsequently merge with burnt strokes and do not create a delineation that betrays the performer's amateurism.

It is done in this way:

  • drawing is drawn on paper. As a result, its outline is obtained on the reverse side;
  • the image is turned face down and, going slightly beyond the boundaries of the lines, the slate is hatched over the entire area;
  • the drawing is again turned over with the front side, and hatched onto the base. Fastened with adhesive tape;
  • the composition is outlined again, without effort, so as not to damage the paper;
  • A sketch is burned out according to the resulting slate print.

Another simple way is to punch along the contour:

  • attach a sketch to a plank or plywood;
  • with a pen without ink, with medium pressure, draw along all lines;
  • an imprint will remain on the wood, along which it will not be difficult to drive with a soldering iron.

Craftsmen with a skill graphic image, prefer to sketch directly on the basis, without additional linear designations, being content with only weak outlines of the compositional arrangement.

Those wishing to master the art of pyrography can try any technique. And even if it turns out not at all as expected, diligence and self-confidence will eventually lead to worthy results.

Attention, only TODAY!

Nowadays, there are a lot of wood burning methods, each of which requires separate skills and materials. This article will discuss the most common method - pyrography. This method is literally painting on wood using a special electric burner, which you can buy in many stores, both among needlework and in the tool department. In this article, we will analyze the popular drawings that are perfect for wood burning.
by the most best material for drawing a drawing, a plywood board prepared from alder or linden is considered. Before work, it must be sanded with sandpaper. Sketches can be drawn on wood by hand or transferred through carbon paper, you can also use a stencil, but do not forget to remove it before starting the burning.

We analyze popular drawings for wood burning with our own hands

Drawing technique:
  • Burning is carried out exclusively on dry wood.
  • To begin with, dots are first placed on a pre-drawn drawing, and only after that lines are drawn. In order to make the line thin, the pen of the electric burner should be moved quickly. And to get a thick line, on the contrary, slowly. When the line is finished, the pen should be torn off quickly, without delaying in place. Do not press the pen while drawing.
  • First, the outer edge of the pattern is burned out, gradually moving to the center.
  • By changing the intensity and inclination of the pin, you can create both deeply saturated lines and subtle strokes. You can also change the color intensity of the lines.
  • Do not slow down the pen of the electric burner according to the drawing. This can make the edges of the burnt grooves charred. The same thing happens if the pin overheats.
  • You can cool the tip of the pin by simply holding it upright for a while.
  • Burning should be done in several parts of the picture at once. After working a little on one site, they leave it and move on to another, and then return to the first again. This is necessary to avoid intermediate burns between adjacent strokes due to overheating. Therefore, you should not immediately burn out several details that are close to each other, before you burn a new stroke, you need to let the neighboring one cool down.
  • If you need to shade a large area, you should first burn out the contour (outline), and then work inside it with the wide side of the pin. When creating a background, you can use a variety of techniques: paint over with vertical lines or strokes, dots, patterns of various sizes and application densities. Also in wood burning kits there are often curly tips, the use of which helps to diversify the drawing in a simple, uncomplicated way.
  • Having finished burning the drawing, the surface is carefully, but carefully, so as not to damage small strokes and lines and not to round the edges of the protrusions, sand the smallest sandpaper.
  • An already finished drawing can be supplemented by painting it with watercolors or oil paints. Painting on wood requires paint. High Quality and a sufficient set of soft round and flat brushes.
  • Scorched, and after painted works need a special finish, which is waxing. Wax finish gives the pattern a matte silky sheen and preserves the natural color of the wood, and also helps to preserve the tone and saturation of the superimposed paints for a long time.

We study schemes and examples of beautiful works for inspiration

The photo below shows a selection of light pattern patterns that can help beginners get their hands on:

Undoubtedly popular motifs for burning, for example, on a cutting board, are paintings depicting nature.

Flowers burnt on a tree look very beautiful. Here are a few patterns that are very easy to make even for first-timers to this craft.

Perhaps the following examples will seem more complicated than the previous ones, but the animals made on wood are worth the labor invested in their creation:

Video for beginners on the topic of the article

On these videos you will see how the wood burning process takes place, learn some of the nuances of this type of activity, how to choose the right burner and, perhaps, find new ideas for yourself and your work.

Today more and more more people of different ages is fond of wood burning. This type of needlework is widely available and requires a minimum of basic skills and maximum care when working. Wood burning is called "pyrography", the pattern is applied to a wooden surface using a special electric burner, which can be purchased at specialty needlework stores. You can come up with wood burning drawings on your own, or you can find ready-made templates and sketches on the Internet.

Material selection

The best material is a board made of alder, birch or linden. Wood should be soft and light, especially if this is your first work. Beginners also use regular plywood. Before applying the drawing, such a board must be sanded with sandpaper. Or you can do everything on a cutting board that will be ready.

Sketches can be drawn on the board by hand, or can be translated through carbon paper or stencil.

How to draw

Make sure the board is dry before burning. Put connection points on the drawing translated with a pencil and only then draw lines. To get a thin line, the electric burner should be moved quickly, and vice versa, if you want to get a thicker line, move the pen of the tool more slowly.

No need to press hard on the electric burner when drawing a picture. When the line is finished, the pen must be torn off sharply.

First, the outer contour is burned out, then you can gradually move on to the inner details, to the center. It is best to burn out in parts, that is, you need to give the newly burned elements the opportunity to cool. So work a little in one area, then leave it and move on to another, and so on, until the whole work is completed.

After burning, the surface should cool slightly, then carefully, so as not to damage the strokes and lines, especially small ones, you need to sand the board with fine sandpaper. You can paint with watercolors or oil paints only when the work has completely cooled down. After painting, the work must be waxed, that is, subjected to a wax finish. Thanks to waxing, the design acquires a soft sheen and retains the natural color of the wood and the saturation of colors.

Examples for inspiration

Patterns for wood burning can be very diverse: animals, flowers, ethnic ornaments, nature, and so on. They can be used to decorate cutting boards, as paintings in the home, or as gifts for family and friends.

For beginners, it is best to choose simple drawings, as in the photo:

Children can also engage in pyrography, of course, under close attention, because you need to work with a hot electric burner. For little masters, there are also interesting, beautiful and easy drawing patterns:


Engaging in this interesting type of needlework is quite simple, the main thing is not to be afraid and follow your imagination. Happy creativity!

Video on the topic of the article

And in order to get acquainted with the topic in more detail, you can watch specially selected video materials on this topic.

The technique of wood burning or pyrography is a simple and exciting activity, closely related to the traditions of Russian folk art. In Russia since ancient times it has been valuable handmade. Men forged from iron, burned and carved various objects from wood. Especially often these were various icons, crosses, iconostases, as well as cutting boards, kitchen utensils, combs and so on. It was not difficult to figure out wood burning, sketches were then found in the outside world: these were images of saints, natural patterns and motifs, flowers, animals.

Now all kinds of templates and stencils can be easily found on the Internet, in specialized literature, and you can also buy a ready-made set that includes a board, an electric burner, and even a sketch with plots for burning.

Material and rules of burning

For beginners, light and soft woods are best suited, they are easy to apply with a pyrograph (electric burner).

You can use materials from linden, poplar, chestnut, the main thing is to choose a flat wooden surface so that there are no knots on it.

Before starting the burning, it is necessary to prepare the board, namely, to clean the surface of the board with sandpaper, then cover it with furniture varnish and sand it again. This will remove all the fluff and unnecessary "burrs" from your board.

Also make sure that the surface is absolutely dry before you can start working. In order to avoid contamination of the working surface of your whiteboard, you can draw a picture not on the board itself, but on transparent paper. So the paper will be removed as the image is burned. Be sure to lean the hand that contains the pyrograph on a table or other work surface to avoid accidental movements that can lead to damage to the picture. Remember that the tip of the burner is hot, so be careful when working with a dangerous tool.

Once the drawing is burned out, it is necessary to let the work cool slightly for 3-5 minutes, then carefully go over the entire surface of the board with fine sandpaper. Do it carefully so as not to damage the lines and strokes made by the pyrograph.

Let's start decorating

Finished drawings can be painted with paints. Watercolor or acrylic will do, and you can also use oil if you know how to work with it. Color will add elegance and brightness to your work. A wax finish can also be used to add shine to the painting and preserve the colors.

Pyrography will be especially interesting for children, because so many beautiful and interesting paintings can be created using this wonderful technique! Boys can burn animals, favorite superheroes, model cars or motorcycles. Girls will like to burn princesses, horses or unicorns, cute kittens or flowers more. And how great it will be to come up with your own plots for burning! There is room for fantasy. Here are some photos to inspire the kids:

And some more complex options:

Good day, brain artisans! Today I will share my experience in the field of wood burning or pyrography, using which you can do it yourself create a real masterpiece!

Burn tool

You can pick up any tool for pyrography: from cheap to expensive. My first burner was from a supermarket, it came with 5 different nozzles and, in principle, it did its job perfectly. But over time, I began to use it only to fill the background, because when working with it for many hours, it slowly starts to “fry” my fingers, and the sting heats up so that accuracy is lost.

That's why I bought a professional brain tool pyrograph, with the ability to adjust the glow of the tip, which is very convenient when using different types of wood and creating different blackouts. And of course, a big plus is that you do not need to wait for the burner sting to cool down in order to change it to another one.

Material for pyrography

To begin with, I note that it is necessary to have a hood or fan when burning out, but do not direct the air flow to the burner so that it does not cool.

- MDF: Not the most beautiful material, but I had it in large quantities. The material is hard, so it requires more heat; there is no graininess, which allows you to perform the drawing more clearly and without errors; when done with a gradient, it gives a nice golden sheen, but sometimes a lifeless grayish. Important! Since MDF is a formaldehyde-based compressed-glued wood dust, an exhaust hood is required!

- pine: cheap and widely available material, soft, easily burned. The granularity makes you play with the temperature of the heat and pressure on the sting, the resins give the craft a lacquer shine.

- cedar: soft material, graininess is not a problem, the lines appear well, but the gradient is hardly noticeable.

- cherry: smells great when working 🙂! I've only used it once, but the quality is excellent.

Another note - never burn out on surfaces that have been treated with anything (lacquer, paint, etc.)! This will result in fire or poisoning.

Drawing contours

For my first homemade I applied the contours painstakingly, by hand, believing that tracing paper or templates were not acceptable, that this was a kind of deception. But when I realized that the customers do not appreciate this, that for them this is a little exciting moment, I began to apply the drawing through black tracing paper. It is black, blue that gives a lot of unpleasant troubles.

The trick: some pyrographers apply the design with thermal transfer paper by printing the design on a printer and “translating” it with a warm iron. But this method can cause overheating of the material even with volumetric homemade the proportions of the picture may be lost, distortion may appear. But there is such a way.

Contour burning

For the contours, I use a spear point with a heat of 7/10 for MDF and 5/10 for pine. A sharp sting is harder to keep smooth lines, besides, it leaves a decent furrow, but I like it. The ball tip does not penetrate deep into the wood and allows you to burn lines in various directions.

Trick: Try to burn out the contours with one brainstroke, in one fell swoop, but drive the sting slowly, as you can scratch the tree, and not burn it. With long lines, you can move not only the hand with the burner, but also the material itself.

fill

Filling surfaces is easier than creating a gradient, but it also looks good. For larger volumes, I recommend a flat tip with medium to high temperatures. For small areas I use a calligraphic pen, which also gives high quality.

Trick: Don't try to fill surfaces quickly and at excessively high temperatures, as you will ruin homemade, leaving deep black scars-furrows on the tree. Work within medium temperatures in gentle circular motions.

Golden Trick: When first touching the tree, blow on the tip of the stinger, so the black starting point will not be visible during circular movements, and the beginning will be smooth.

Gradient

To create a gradient, you need less heat, more patience and precision in hand movements. For a gradient effect, I use a flat tip with a 4-5/10 glow.

The gradient itself is applied in a circular motion on a small area, no changes are visible during the first pass, but passing through part of the area a second time, this area becomes darker.

Important: for large grain/fibrillation brain material handle coarser fibers at a higher temperature than when applying the entire gradient.

Hatching

Hatching and cross hatching give great result and sometimes they are even better than the gradient, for example, when the material is very fibrous.

For shading, I use the same tips as when drawing simple lines, for example, a spear-shaped sting. Start hatching in one direction, always from the edges, so the edges will be darker than the inside. To make hatching crafts darker in some places, apply cross hatching.

Textures

Various textures are good when burning out, I will talk about some:

Head hair: For crazy 80s style hair (see Kiss) or just a little messy (see AC/DC), use a high heat flat tip. At the same time, do not try to make the lines smooth and smooth, so you will achieve hair volume. Shades vary the degree of pressing the burner, or leave unburnt areas as highlights.

- fur: with a thin tip, sharp or round, you can create an amazing fur effect. In dark areas of the fur, use a larger brain heating and pressure, and light quick strokes in bright places. If the fur is too angular and defined, go over it with a flat tip and refine this texture.

scales and skin: use sharp and broken lines to create this texture. This will give the effect of cracking, and with a flat tip create blackouts to add volume. For this texture, do not apply hatching, otherwise you will get a fur dragon 🙂

Background

After burning the main drawing, it is necessary to supplement homemade background, this is especially true when working with cheap and low-quality wood. My following tricks will help you with this:

- rust: the easiest way to apply rust is to "scrape" the rust from old bolts and pieces of iron with an ordinary brainskin, and then apply the resulting brown powder to a homemade product. I do this with my finger, but the cotton swab option is fine too.

I often apply this effect on MDF in order to remove excessive shine and add realism to it.

- fan: using a conventional mobile fan that smoothly directs the flow to different corners of the room, you can create an amazing vignette effect. Just point it at the homemade product and start gently burning out the lines of the drawing, the effect will not appear immediately, but you will definitely see it. The bottom line is that the flow from the fan periodically cools the sting, thus the same line has a different blackness along its length.

Be careful when working closely with brainfan! I somehow forgot and got a decent burn when the fan ran into the burner.

- darkening: when the drawing requires a completely black background, or when you have patience, or the amount of darkening is not large, then you can apply a flat tip at high temperatures or use a gradient technique. But at the same time, be sure of the final result, otherwise everything will end in a waste of time and material.

- pointing or "dot": this old technology used in many medieval works of art. The bottom line is the simple heating of an iron template, for example, a bolt and repeated “branding” homemade. Now a sick round tip is suitable for this, which needs to be heated enough and periodically cleaned of carbon deposits. When working with soft wood, this technique allows you to create a contrasting pattern and textural background.

If you like my craft, then get a burner and feel free to dive into the world of art called pyrography.

good luck brain masterpieces!