In this blog I will be doing a review of Aney Carver’s book, Step-by-step Pyrography for Beginners. If you are not familiar with Aney Carver, she is the talented artist behind the popular YouTube channel Pyrocrafters. Aney is very good at creating projects that are beginner friendly. Her YouTube channel has numerous beginner friendly projects, and everything in her book is beginner friendly!
Here’s an Amazon affiliate link to the book: https://amzn.to/3YKNsi9
When I write book reviews, I try to cover the highlights that I think make the book special or useful. I do not cover everything in the book. The reason is that the person who wrote the book is trying to sell it. Revealing everything would be disrespectful to the author. I put myself in their shoes, and I know wouldn’t want someone sharing every page of a book I wrote.
I do have a video version of this book review. Click on the image to the left to watch it.
Here’s a link to Pyrocrafter’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Pyrocrafters
Book’s physical characteristics
Here’s an image of the back cover. I will start by talking about the physical characteristics of the book.
The book is almost 8 1/2” wide and 11” tall (21.6 x 27.9 cm), so the size of a standard piece of copier paper.
The book weighs 13.7 ounces (388.4 g).
It has 109 pages not counting the introduction and final words.
The images are in full color and sufficiently sized to make it easy to see what is going on.
The content doesn’t feel cramped.
Book’s content
The beginning of the book begins with a brief explanation of how Aney came to be a pyrographer.
She goes on to state her goal of, “coaching you to experiment and push through your artistic hesitations.”
My favorite line is, “There are no losses in failure, only opportunities to learn what not to do.”
This comment follows along my own belief that any time spent burning is time well-spent. Even if things don’t turn out, you still gained experience. Gaining experience is the only way you will get better with any hobby!
After that we start with a chapter covering what you will need to get started in pyrography. It includes brief explanation of the difference between brass and wire tip burners. Plus, it includes the pros and cons for each system.
An extremely useful section in this chapter is the one covering pen tips. Aney introduces you to the different types of pen tips, or categories of pen tips.
What’s wonderful about this is that she provides both brass and wire tip options, so it doesn’t matter what type of burner you are using.
Another thing I like is the page devoted to brass tips. Let’s face it, most brass tips have some rather unique pen tips in it.
Also included are 10 tips to help you with different aspects of pyrography. No, I’m not going to show all of the tips. If you’ve been burning for a while, you are probably familiar with more of them. If you’re new, then it will be more useful information for you to discover.
The chapter has a section on a few different woods that she recommends, and some to avoid. Also included is how to prepare the wood for burning, and transferring patterns.
In the next chapter we getting into the mechanics of the burners. How to equip tips, adjusting the heat, etc.
One of the most useful sections of the chapter is when Aney’s explains the different burn strokes or techniques. There are several pages devoted to this subject with numerous photos.
Another very helpful section is the one covering problems. There are a couple of pages that show the problem, explain why it happened, and provide a solution to resolve issue.
The chapter ends with a page on giftable ideas, and tips to customize and/or the projects contained in the book.
The next chapter in the book, chapter 3, contains the first 8 of the 16 projects found in the book. These projects are designed to give you experience and gain confidence with pyrography.
I love that the first project explains how to create functional art: cork trivets.
Each project begins with a large color photo of the project. The page also includes the list of materials that will be needed for the project including the pen tip(s) she used.
Then there is a page or pages that explain the steps needed to complete the artwork. There are numerous photos and a paragraph explaining what is going on.
Another project explains how to create a lettered sign. This project is burned on a live edge round. In fact, the variety of mediums is one of the nice things about the book.
The other project I want to mention in this section is another project creating functional art. The project creates a jewelry holder. It’s such a creative project.
The next chapter in the good contains the remaining projects. These projects are slightly more complex.
Also, the projects will expand the mediums to try, and build upon the skills learned during the first 8 projects.
One of the new mediums Aney introduces is gourds.
A project I just love is Aney’s decorative planter. When I saw this project, I had to create my own version of it. I will cover that a little later in this blog.
This mandala artwork is gorgeous. At some point I want to try this one.
The patterns chapter contain all of the designed used in the 16 projects, and a few bonus patterns.
The patterns are large, and can be easily copied.
The book ends with a resources page. Which is a list of places and/or websites that Aney gets her supplies from. After that is the table of contents, and the final words from Aney.
My Plant Holder
I found the wooden holder Aney used on Hobby Lobby’s website, but I was unwilling to pay $10 in shipping for a $7.00 item. Instead, I ordered a set of hexagon wall shelves from Amazon that cost under $20. Here’s an Amazon affiliate to the shelves: https://amzn.to/3KtIjXr
Todd put a piece of plywood on front on the shelf, and I was ready to go.
I sketched out a simple desert scene and burned in the pencil lines.
Then I added texture and shading to the design.
Afterwards, I added color and the fake succulents.
I really like how it turned out. I have to Aney’s book to thank for the concept. In fact, I like her idea so much that I plan on doing several of these. I think they would look great clustered together on a wall.
IN CONCLUSION
Over the years I have been sent a few pyrography books to review, and most of them claim to be for beginners. Aney’s book is by far the best book for beginners I have seen! I’m really impressed with the wide variety of projects, and how a number of them are functional art. By that I mean they do more than just hang on a wall looking nice. I think Aney did a fantastic job keeping things simple while exposing the reading to a wide range of techniques and mediums to burn on.
If you are thinking about getting into pyrography, a beginner to pyrography, or someone who has wanted to try different mediums to burn on I highly recommend Step-by-Step. It is a great resource that you will find very helpful to learn about pyrography.
Brenda
April 25, 2023
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