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...

Bio of a Wood-Burning: "Portland Waterfront, 1901," Final Sessions

I had been optimistic that I could wrap this piece with just one more (protracted) work session. As it happened, it took two. While I expect it to be a norm for many artists, I know that (for me), the closer I get to the conclusion of a piece in which I've invested so many hours, the more anxious I am to see it finally come to closure, to see it real and complete.

With as many hours that have been spent burning the smaller details, we have been working around a large area of the surface space. Comparatively speaking, much of this space (the broad swath of cobblestoned Commercial Street) comes together more quickly than the more intensive areas that surround it. The drawback to this is that it can be a very tedious process: cobblestone after cobblestone, after cobblestone... To combat what is often the more boring hours of this process, I generally burn "sections" of the street, then turn my attentions elsewhere, returning to the cobblestones later in the session or the next day.

The cobblestones detailed here are very typical of the stones making up the foreground. The deeper we go in this image (i.e. the farther away it appears from the observer), I tend to soften and blend the details, lending itself to achieving the illusion of perceptual distance.



As I mentioned in my last post, one of the greatest charms of working such a highly-detailed piece as this is that it grants a lot of freedom to allow your imagination to play. When I am burning this particular theme, the foreground figures aren't even usually conceived until well after work has begun. I figure they'll announce themselves the closer I get to that area of the surface. This sailor with his seabag, for example, only occurred to me minutes before I began sketching him--with the burner.


While I try to keep figures like these unique to each piece (which is why, as often as I've burned this Portland Waterfront scene, they are always one-of-a-kind), this fish-monger has made repeated appearances. The last time I burned this theme, she was much farther down the street, pushing that barrow of fish. This time around, it seemed only just two allow her a moment to wipe her brow...


With this Portland Waterfront scene, my last session is always dedicated to laying in all the ship rigging and powerlines, then reviewing, inch by inch, the entire burn. Touch-up lines and shades are laid in and the rougher edges between some of the figures and their background as resolved.



In reaching the fruition towards which we've worked all week, I often find, coupled with the charge of anticipated conclusion, the slightest strain of sadness. This exercise is almost over, and with it the excitement that is particular to every individual piece. The initial vision for the piece has only been a framework to let our imaginations repeatedly play. There have been moments, sown into those long hours, that it has felt as if we've been riding the very spark of creation...

Bio of a Wood-Burning: "Portland Waterfront, 1901", Days 3-6

If it is true that "the demon is in the detail," then this wood-burning has always ranked as one of the more hellish. What gives this piece its magic are its many small details. There's a lot going on here and having them invent themselves as we proceed is one of the many reasons this craft can be so addictive.

The 4 days which constitute this post were spent with precisely these details. These are as varied as getting the windows in proper perspective or burning in a horse-drawn carriage at a scale so small it will prove all but invisible in the final piece. When it comes to this stage of things, I generally just "pick an area" and get busy, working it until it's time to move elsewhere...or as inspiration allows.


With a piece as detailed as Portland Waterfront, 1901, often as not my pre-sketching tends to be far more detailed than, say, if I were doing a wildlife piece. The above photo details a section that is actually quite small (the bow of this boat is little larger than my thumbnail), representing an area at roughly center. The windows of the building at the right...


...provide a decent example of how these windows are laid out individually. When working at a scale that small, I have found it helpful to burn the individual panes of windowglass, forming the woodwork from unburnt slivers rather than burning their specific outlines.

The charm of attempting a piece like this one is that it allows for plenty of space to let your imagination run free. As often as I have burned the Portland Waterfront, 1901 theme, there are so many elements that become unique to each piece. They announce their intentions as work progresses. I purposefully leave large sections of the panel "un-planned" when I begin this burned, just to guarantee many opportunities to "invent as I go."

With so many small details ("events"), I often catch myself wondering if, when this piece is hanging in someone's living room, how long will it be before they realize the figure of this woman is reflected in the storefront window...


...or that the little dog is peeing on the cargo container behind the man with the newspaper...?



Through this stage of the wood-burning, the work sessions get behind us quickly as the small details emerge, defining the piece...









At first glance, there appears to be quite a bit left to this piece, here at the end of 6 days' work. I am anxious to get back to this panel tomorrow. I may just be able to wrap up this piece with just one more day...

Bio of a Wood-burning:" Portland Waterfront, 1901," Day 2

What is often a daunting element for a pyrographer, when working on such a large piece, is that after several hours have been invested, so little appears to have been accomplished. I frequently find myself stepping back at the end of a work session, shaking my head and wondering what I'd done to swallow those hours. Most often, it is the piece I'm working on playing its mind-game on me. After six of seven hours' work, we expect to see more palpable progress, great swaths of wood burned under, and often as not this won't be the case.

Pyrography can be slow in its application, and especially when we are executing a highly-detailed burning, such as Portland Waterfront, 1901, a great deal of time will be spent on a comparatively small surface space. This can often only be appreciated at the end of the project, when all those elements in which we've invested so much time suddenly seem to snap together. Those are the moments that can make this craft so addictive: that warm little high we feel at the conclusion of the matter, sitting back and feeling it was all worth it in the end.

I have always been very fond of this theme because of it being such a busy scene, with figures ranging in size from smaller than a pencil lead to stepping through the extreme foreground and out of frame, too large to depict in full and achieve the desired effect. Today I've opted to start with some of the intermediate figures along the left-hand side of the street.



Keeping the pencil lines to a minimum, I'll lay out the figures in their proper perspective, then get busy with the burner. I'll cut the pencil lines first, then begin to draw the subjects in.



I take an important cue from the impressionist painters, in that when depicting figures, especially those at some distance, our eyes no longer pick up the finer details but rather how light, shadow, and color interact. The details become more general. While we may not fret too much about a color spectrum, dealing as we are in a monochromatic medium, that medium itself poses a distinct challenge to the pyrographic artist: with so much going on in a burn like this, and only a fairly narrow palette of shades to pull them off, keeping the figures from getting swallowed into their surroundings will require constant vigilance as this burn progresses.


Excepting any touch-ups that will announce themselves later, we've now established these figures by simply building shades up from bare-bones lines.

At the end of the evening's work-session, I've laid in the fascade of the left-hand buildings and spent a good deal of time shading it. I've established the first of a series of "events" (in this case, the pedestrians on that length of sidewalk and the horse-drawn carriage as it passes.) I have also begun cutting in the buildings and merchant ships on the right-hand side of the street. While I am very aware that much got accomplished tonight, it's proving to be one of those occasions when it just doesn't look it.


And the craziness hasn't even started...

Bio of a Wood-burning: Portland Waterfront, 1901, Day 1

I am dedicating this series of posts to my Mom.

A few years back, when I relocated back to this area, I stayed with my folks for the first several months. I worked second shift at a top-flight wood-working operation, the Duratherm Window Corp. in North Vassalboro. Through the work-weeks especially, they'd be gone by the time I got up, not getting home until after I'd left for work. Entire weeks went by and we'd not see each other, living under the same roof.

I had established a work-corner in my mom's garage and one of my projects that first summer was a version of "Portland Waterfront, 1901". My mother commented to me back then that the only way she was keeping track of me was by checking the progress of that burn when she got home from work. In such a way, the wood-burning seemed to form incrementally each day...rather like these "Bio of a Wood-Burning" posts, which I began with Marilyn a few weeks ago. The experience that summer is precisely what inspired me to do the Bio of a Wood-burning series. It seemed a fun experiment as well as offering a wonderful platform from which to share how to do these burns (the question most frequently asked of me). I'm geneally just flattered that they're interested.

So, yeah, I just have to dedicate this next series of posts to my mother, Simone.



One of the good things about being home as much as I have been of late, is that I occasionally "vacation" from my workspace downstairs to the much-cushier surroundings in our apartment. This piece, you'll notice, is quite large, 25" x 38". It will also prove to be an exercise in intense detail.

Portland Waterfront, 1901 is a theme I've returned to repeatedly for more than a decade. I love the image of a very real place (Commercial Street, Portland, ME) in an era when change was very much in the air, much like the wooden ships whose bowsprits would cross over the street when they were docked, coming only within a few feet of power-lines that had only so recently been strung. It is the very image of a busy Yankee seaport at the dawn of a new era.

In seeming contrast to my oft-stated preference for keeping my pre-sketching to a minimum and composing with the hot tool, this burning requires a lot of pencil work and prep. It is a very busy scene with much happening in every corner and contains so many complex angles and minutiae that it needs to be right on the first pass or the effect of the whole bloody burning can be ruined.


In actuality, I have kept my pencil-work to a minimum--but with so much going on, it just doesn't appear so. Most of the first day's session has been spent in lay-out. Over the next few days, these pencil lines will become a street scene representing more than two city blocks...circa 1901. In the three-ish hours I've already invested with my pencil and steel ruler, I have left most of the finer details and all of the closer ones out. As I work closer to an area, I'll compose as I go. I have found this to be invaluable as it leaves me plenty of time to get creative as I go. Sometimes the best ideas hit you only seconds before the burner hits the wood.


For some unknown reason, I pretty much always start this burn with the left-hand wall. It seems as good a place as any, I expect. I generally cut the bricks with the burner-tip, leaving a decent, but still fairly shallow burnline. In doing bricks, I've usually kept to a 4-step process. First, burn the outline; second, shade each brick to "desired texture." I then lightly shade the whole fascade, which knocks back the as-yet-burned "mortar" between the bricks and establishes the main shadows. The last step I save for later, one of the final stages of the burn itself, which is to tighten everything up once the burn is all but completed (and we have a clearer perspective of what we've actually accomplished.


At the end of this first day's work, better than 7 hours, I'm satisfied that we're off to a good start. The work is sketched out and the burn begun in earnest.

But we've still got a long ways to go...

Bio of a Woodburning--Marilyn, Final Session

As I wrapped up Marilyn, dawn from my workspace window looked like this...and sounded like the Dead playing a '69 Dark Star. They followed a night-long parade of bluesfolk with names like Bessie Smith, Big Joe Williams, and Robert Nighthawk, straight through my wee hours. For a hopeless musichound like myself, having a stack of discs on hand is essential. If I'm working, music's playing, and that's just the way it is.

I have found, when attempting portraiture, when staring at that big blank nothing, it's best to take a breath, bite your lip, and dive in. And pray.

I often start with a subject's hair. While I will leave the finer points (errant strands falling on a cheek, for example) for later, I find this helps frame and define the work area of the face itself. When doing hair, it's helpful to remember that portraying hair is never done with solid, repetitive strands. When looking at how hair is lies on a model's head, we can see distinct "quadrants." These are how we segment, then construct the illusion of human hair.

As with the skirt a couple days ago, the pencil lines here will be erased as work progresses toward them. Were Marilyn a brunette, I'd had no worries as I'd simply burn the lines under. Since Marilyn's hair is so light, these lines would show unacceptably through. We've come too far to allow that to happen.

You will also notice, riding close to one of the marked boundaries a dark spot. this is actually a blemish in the wood surface. Another mark appears striping the upper left arm. With the former, I was able to "vanish" this mark into Marilyn's hairdo. The stripe on her arm, however, must be allowed to remain. Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.

As I lay in the hair and frame Marilyn's face, I find it necessary to work this area upside down. This is a fairly large piece, with a total surface space of 5 square feet. In order to get and maintain my hand and wrist in the necessary position, I am forever moving the piece around to suit the purpose.












I found there was no hiding after the hair was laid in. Time to tackle the fleshtones of the face...

And there comes a moment after long, often tedious hours have been invested, that it occurs to you that you've finished your piece. Your eye keeps searching the surface for that one last detail you've left undone.











You step back. You breathe.

Bio of a Woodburning--Marilyn, Day 6

Okay, despite what some of y'all's wives have been telling you, this is The Sweet Spot...


It took me a while to find it. (Yeah, I know, just like every other man...) Fleshtones have always been a challenge for me when working with a hot tool. The dynamics of how wood heats and how a hot tool works both conspire against effecting the illusion of flesh. Look at it this way: we're using a tool designed to make distinct marks in the surface of the wood and hoping to achieve an effect that essentially has no such lines, but is represented by smooth, unmarked variations in tone and shade. I have tried and used a variety of techniques over the years, including open flame, to achieve these tones, more often than not with painful results. While I am constantly exploring how to achieve these desired effects without leaving burn marks in my wake, I largely use one very basic technique.

The pencil tip in the sweet spot picture indicates a point along the flat edge of a standard tip. A standard tip is configured like a shallow wedge, with a sharp front edge and point. The area I'm indicating is just inside that sharp front edge and slightly below the point. As I'm right-handed, I work to the right of the front edge. When working the fleshtones, it is generally the only part of that tip I try to let contact the wood surface. In life, this "sweet spot" is smaller than a grain of rice.

Here's the kicker: if the front edge makes contact with the wood, you will have a sharp, dark line (usually a great many of them) precisely where they should never be. If the point hits, you get a dark pinpoint that is every bit as annoying. If I use more than that small area of the flat, I find too much gets burned too quickly and creates a "dark streak" effect.

Even when using a technique that I'm comfortable with, the dynamics of burn tip contacting wood adds one more just for giggles. A tip will cool just perceptively when it hits the wood. Consequently, when "brushing" the shades in, the micro-second when the tip touches wood is often forever preserved as a slightly darker "dot" at either ends of the stroke. To combat this, I try to gently "brush" the stroke, moving quickly and softly at the front end of the stroke (with the idea that the work surface of the tip is moving so quickly, it doesn't have a chance to leave unwanted scoring behind.)

All these unwanted "phantom marks" are precisely why I've always found fleshtones a challenge in a pyrographic medium. That constant challenge is doubtlessly why I keep returning to the attempts.

In effecting fleshtones, it really is a matter of just training your eye to see what it's really seeing; then it's your eye pleading with your hand to translate that. For example, when considering Greene's original image, our eyes want to see the whites of Marilyn's costume. There is, in fact, very little white there. Even at the barest contour of fabric, this is entirely grey-scale.

Further, we know that the mesh of her tutu is composed of white threads. Because of its transparency (& how that transparency is manipulated by the amount of material folded under, e.g. left of her right elbow) what's beneath and behind it translate very well through the fabric. Notice, for example, how the darkness of the tapestry and the thinness of the skirt material make the section around Marilyn's legs appear darker than the sides of the skirt. This actually helped in achieving the desired effect as it gave me a section of greater contrast in which to pull it off.

With these fleshtones, and how they worked with this skirt, most of the problem solved itself, so long as I was able to keep in mind that this is a monochromic image. Grey scale...or in this case, "brown-scale." Flesh is darker than white fabric. Flesh beneath a layer of thin white mesh in lighter than it is just below the hemline. You get the idea.

In reaching this point, it became decision-making time. In the room, Marilyn's chest and left arm at this moment actually appear very lifelike. Her right arm appears a bit dark and "choppy." The fleshtones of that arm, most specifically its areas of heavier shadow, will be softened a bit later. As for left arm and chest, I must stay mindful that the finish I will be using on the finished piece will lighten the surface by as much as a single shade. Further, I've not yet achieved the desired contrast between her flesh and the fabric of her costume. These surfaces will need to be darkened by at least a single shade.

When I began this burn, I'd not intended to save Marilyn's head for last. It just worked out that way. Generally, I prefer to begin with the main event and work my way out from there. But when it comes down to it, it's always good to work the area where you feel led. The closer one gets to the conclusion of the matter, the more narrow those choices get.

I had hoped to lay in all the fleshtones (which would include Marilyn's face) in last night's session. I've always preferred to work fleshtones in one pass. As it happened, what did get accomplished took 7 hours in the getting there...

Bio of a Woodburning--Marilyn, Days 4 & 5

After a shorter session last night and a longer one this past evening, I don't quite know what to make of how progress seems to be going. As with most large-scale burnings, I find myself growing impatient over how long a piece seems to be taking. All things considered, work on this piece seems to be progressing decently enough. Another session, two at the most, and Marilyn will be ready for framing.

Provided I don't completely muck this up.

Last night I opted to lay in the carpet, essentially cutting Marilyn's figure completely from the background. I have found when depicting large "fields" like this carpet, the human eye will invariably pick up on patterns that we often make when covering an area with very repetitive strokes. I feel they tend to make an image look more artificial. To combat this problem, when laying in a textured surface like this carpet, I tend to move the burner fairly rapidly and in very random orbits. As with most actions with a burner, this is also a very repetitive motion. Once burned, it simply refuses to appear so. Further, especially when working a larger area, I like to work multiple points and slowly "blossom" these points until they converge. In this manner, I avoid making the piece look more mechanical than it already is.

At this stage of things, the end of the fourth night I've spent with this piece, Marilyn has been cut from her background and I have burned what amounts to a "base coat" for the carpet After the portraiture itself is done, I'll return to the carpet for extra shading, final touch-ups and laying in these refreshingly straight-forward shadows.

At this point, most of all that's left holds no margin for error.

I have felt compelled to attempt this piece for awhile, owing mostly to two distinct challenges it presents. First is the portraiture itself. Fleshtones are particularly tricky with a woodburner and when one is dealing with an image as well-recognized as Miss Monroe, the portrait has to be spot-on. Since we're dealing with a medium that can't realistically be erased or painted under, you only get one chance to get it right.

The second of these "challenges" has long struck me as being the trickier of the two: Marilyn's skirt. The tutu is multiple layers of translucent fabric. In addition to its own layering, Marilyn's legs and portions of her wicker chair transfer through the fabric. How one does that without making the skirt appear too solid (and ruining its effect) is a bit of a mystery. I've never actually done it before.

A good deal of the fifth night was spent with the burner unplugged and me brainstorming how to pull this off. What I came up with was to mark some of the general (and multiple) lines of the skirt very lightly with pencil. Unlike the lines I make when I'm pre-sketching the highlights, I've no intention of actually burning these pencil lines. Their only existence is to help me keep track of the direction in which I'm working.

Working the surface with this "plan," it's essential to erase the lines as you go. The burn in this area is so lightly shaded that the lines will show, unless they're eliminated before the burner tip reaches them. Once a pencil-line had been hit with a burner, it's nigh-on impossible to erase. You'll notice in the upper left of the frame below, part of a terrycloth rag. It is essential that you wipe the surface clean of any particles, such as even the tiniest eraser crumbs. When a burner hits an eraser crumb (or any other small particle), it will scorch it into the surface and mar your burning.

Once plugged in, the skirt ended up going fairly smoothly. I found using quick, smooth, and very light strokes worked best. At the end of this fifth night, I've opted to revisit the skirt (where it crosses over Marilyn's legs) until I lay in the fleshtones. There is only a narrow contrast between the shades of this skirt and the shades of Marilyn's flesh. In order to effect that balance, I'd as soon do them at the same time.

...which I suppose would be tonight...

Bio of a Woodburning--Marilyn, Days 2& 3

Unfortunately, I've not been able to keep my butt in the chair as much as I'd like these last couple days, between ringing telephones, a spouse who insists on speaking, and the usual annoying host of responsibilities.

I have only just recently begun employing a 25 watt burner for areas that I will be scorching heavily. I've got to admit, I'm impressed--and somewhat chagrined that I'd not done so before. The 25-watt hot tool has a much stouter shaft and can hold up to more abuse than my preferred weapon of choice: the humble 20-watt, WB-1 Burning Pen. With this Marilyn burn, I've found the heavier hot tool did marvelously in laying down the background tapestry. To have achieved equal results with my WB-1 would have literally taken twice as long.

In my last post I mentioned having cut Marilyn's shoulder & forearm with a light burn line. In the last pic of this post, you'll note that the only place where I've burnt the background tapestry all the way to Marilyn is at that same shoulder. When burning subjects such as the human form, I always lightly cut the line as mentioned. This line actually does cut a very shallow groove in the wood...

The line of the shoulder (as with pretty much anything else you'd care to name from a skyscraper to a salt shaker) is defined by what's behind that line. In this case, a very large tapestry. When burning this background to the line of the shoulder, you will feel the tip of the burner hit that "dividing line," which is your cue to break contact with the wood surface. As shown, the original outline vanishes, leaving a cleanly-lined form.

After 3 days of living with that tapestry, I'm well-past anxious to get to the next phase of things.

I've just not decided what that will be...

Bio of a Woodburning--Marilyn, Day 1

I believe Milton Greene's photographs of Marilyn to have become pure American iconography. I doubt anyone has photographed her better. Perhaps a decade ago, I saw a photo in a woodworker's journal of a burning done from one of Greene's Marilyn pictures. For me, it was as if the bar had been suddenly, painfully set. I'd been making a modest income through my burnings and woodwork for years at that point and I wasn't even in this artist's zip code.

To this day, when I see the work of others whose work I consider better than my own (and after getting over the kick to my ego's shins...), it makes me want to be that good. I ain't even halfway there yet.

This week, remembering the first time I'd ever seen anyone burn a Milton Greene Marilyn, I find myself burning, well, a Milton Greene portrait of Marilyn Monroe.

Greene's 1954 Ballerina...




A burner can be an unforgiving medium. Though I tend to keep it to a minimum, I find pencil sketching invaluable. The heavier lines on Marilyn's shoulder and forearm have already been lightly cut in with a burner.


I've opted to begin this piece with the dark background tapestry. Often, when I'm working a section that will have areas of heavy scorch (such as the bark of a tree), I start by cutting the darkest lines. I find this helps texturing the burn.


I then 'fill' the now well-margined area I'm working. Take care to work from light to dark. You can always darken a light spot. Lightening a dark spot tends to be more problematic. Charred wood likes to disagree with the process.


As the area is darkened, this is when you get to "play painter" and burn the highlights and contours.




At the end of the first day, the work is sketched in and the burn begun. Unlike paint on a canvas, wood will only burn at a certain rate. Large, very dark areas will take hours. This piece measures 30" x 24". The tip of the pencil indicates the studied area.

Tomorrow will likely be hours more of the same.