Bio of a Wood-burning: "Nicole"

From painters to novelists, every artist I've ever known finds inspiration in the oddest moments--and in the strangest hours. From becoming mesmerized by the way light shatters on an ice-sheathed branch the morning after a winter storm to the "what-if" moments every fiction writer has when the turn of a phrase becomes a spark that becomes a flame, we live for those "Eureka Moments."

A few weeks back, poking about on Facebook at 3:00 in the morning, I was responding to some sentiments posted by one of my wife and I's dearest friends. Her daughter, Nicole, had responded to the same post and I remembered she'd been giving at least some thought to modeling. So, feeling like a trespasser the whole way, I followed a hunch and got myself rewarded. Artists do that. We watch and poke about, waiting for those moments when an image speaks straight to our sensibilities.

Nicole has an affection for Marilyn and, like Monroe, tends to photograph very nicely. A number of things struck me about this photograph. Watching the waves and being lost in thought is an immediately accessible (and thus, engaging) theme and the original photo conveys the feel of that experience rather than merely its image. The energy (e.g. the waves are in motion, she is clearly in mid-stride, etc.) is both present and under-stated, striking a complimentary relationship with the mood of this piece. Were Nicole standing motionless or in full sprint, that balance would have been ruined.

From a pyrographic standpoint, some very specific challenges are presented. This piece has very few hard lines. Most of the surface space is actually a strata of "soft spaces" (water, wet sand, etc.), some in motion, some static, that have to transition one to the next seamlessly...or you've just spent a whole lotta hours making firewood. Water is always tricky, no matter which medium we're working in. With this particular piece, the importance of getting it right is somewhat elevated in that it is not background here; it's a specific player in this mix.

Look at it this way: if 80% of the surface space ends up looking half-assed, what was the point of the exercise?

My second "eureka moment" came while roughing out the fabric of the sweatshirt. I started (and ended) with Nicole's image to help buy me some time in figuring out how to tackle the surf. At this point...
...I began "seeing the waves," or most specifically how to effect them, while "draping cloth." Remember, our minds tend to interpret images contextually: we see a shirt because our model's wearing one. We see water because that's what she's looking at. If you isolate the small of her back, this texture (sharp lights and rolling, gradient shades) could easily be the surface of the water to either side of her. I have been representing water in burns for as long as I've been burning...and it still struck me as a small revelation.

Sand isn't terribly difficult to represent, so long as one takes some care to not inadvertently lay in the accidental patterns that stop in to say hello when we make a lot of repetitive strokes. The human eye is reliably good at detecting these patterns (think of a house painter's brush stroke straight up the middle of an otherwise pristine wall..) The key is to keep your burner tip moving as quickly and randomly as you can as you work the shades to their desired texture.

With the strata of wet sand (marking the reach of the surf), I found it helpful to work the surface in a few passes, essentially "layering" the effect. To mute the burn and to help give this section its final look, I lightly scuffed the surface with a piece of 240-grit sandpaper.


The foam of the seascape presents itself in two forms: as the gentle (and lateral) belt at the tip of the incoming surface and in bursts as the water collides with the rocks a bit farther in. It is most essential to remember, when presenting such things as sea foam, is that there are no hard edges here. They have to be soft, jagged, and utterly devoid of outline.

I usually achieve this effect by focusing on what's behind, say, the flying bits of foam and leaving those irregularly-shaped flecks largely unburnt. The effect of foam is thus created by everything around it rather than the foam itself...though texturing it still must be attended to. In the above photo, this effect has been largely accomplished along the left side of these rocks. For contrast, the right side still had not yet been attended to.

Throughout my time with this burning, I struggled with composition. I knew I wanted something to be happening in the deep left of the piece. I just didn't know what. Initially I had conceived a small sloop under sail, creating its own trough of foam. I eventually discarded this idea, as well as the idea that replaced it, a seagull or two in flight, for the same reason: I felt both would convey too dynamic an energy, which would conflict with the pensive tone that first attracted me to this image...
This being Maine, I opted for a lighthouse theme. From a compositional standpoint, Nicole and the lighthouse create a complimentary relationship, the two "vertical" images in what is otherwise horizontal composition. The understated balance between the two helps to carry the same reflective energy that caught my eye, back in that moment of inspiration...