In this blog I will talk about the Bengal Tiger artwork that I did.  This blog is not what I would consider a tutorial blog.  I will discuss a few things in the blog, but mostly this blog is an easy way for me to share the pattern and reference photo for the artwork.   A video tutorial is available on YouTube, and this blog will have a link to that tutorial.

At the end of each burning session, I take a photo of the artwork.  I got in the habit of doing this because I used to maintain a current projects page that showcased my progress on assorted artworks.  The page became a bit cumbersome to maintain, so I removed it.  I’m still in the habit of taking progress photos, and some of you may appreciate that as I will share a number of those photos in this blog.

Click on the image to the left to view the tutorial on YouTube.

This is the reference photo I used.  I got the photo from Pixabay.  Obviously, I’m only using a small portion of the image.  

Here’s a link to the original photo on Pixabay:  https://pixabay.com/photos/tiger-siberian-amurtiger-predator-5205812/

Here’s the cropped the image I used. 

The cropped image is what the pattern cover.   

Here’s the pdf file of the pattern:  Tiger pattern

Here’s a close up of the artwork after I traced the pattern onto the board.  I’ve started to burn in some of the trace lines. 

What I want to point out is that I trace a number of areas as solid continuous lines, but I don’t burn them that way.  Any time I burning in fur, I always burn short little dashes that are angled in the direction the fur grows.   These little dashes will eventually ‘disappear’ because they will get blended in with the fur texture.

Here’s the artwork after the trace lines have been burned in, and the excess graphite erased. 

Notice how pale my burned trace lines are.   I don’t burn them so that they are dark enough to see, but light enough to blend in.  

After the trace lines were done, then I started on the dark stripes. 

I either burned single lines or used a zigzag burn stroke to create the markings. 

There isn’t an advantage to using on method over another.  Instead I think it is more of a personal preference.  For me burning single lines is extremely monotonous. 

It is important to use a light hand pressure when burning; regardless of which method you use.   A light hand pressure keeps the pen tip from sinking into the wood, and it helps keep the tip at a constant temperature.

I recently created a video that goes into great detail on the zigzag burn stroke I use.  If you’re not that familiar with this burn stroke, then the video might be beneficial.  Just click on the image to watch the video on YouTube.

As you can see, I did not burn all of the markings to a super dark color. 

There are two reasons for this.  1) I prefer to work at lower heats and reburn to build up the color. 

2) I wasn’t 100% how dark I wanted some of the markings.  Let me explain reason 2 a bit more.

One way to help push things into the background is to use low contrast.  I plan to use this concept on the body.  This means that if the orange fur and black markings are within a few shades of each other, this will create a low contrast area.  That will push the body into the background and help bring emphasis to the face.  The face is the focal point. 

Some of the dark markings have been re-burned over, and I have started burning in the orange fur. 

There are two very important things you must do when creating fur texture. 

1) Burn the fur in the direction it is growing. 

2) Adjust the length of your burn stroke accordingly.  On the snout I used very short burn strokes.  As I worked me way towards the mane, I increased the length of the burn strokes.

The orange fur required a lot of reburning to build up the color, depth, and shadows. 

The darker areas you see on the orange fur were all created by re-burning. 

I do not increase the heat setting on my burner. 

I often get asked what temperature I burn at.  I quit sharing that information because people felt there must be something wrong with their burner if they didn’t get the same results.   There are a lot of factors that go into the heat setting you should be burning at.  For example, what type of wood are you burning on?  Hardwoods require a higher heat than soft woods.  What size of pen tip are you using?   Most of the time larger tips require a higher heat setting than smaller ones.   Also, how many burn hours does your pen tip have?   A brand new tip will require a higher heat than the same tip that has been used a lot. 

In this photo I want to point out the whiskers.   Notice the color of the whiskers on the left side of the face; they are black.    The reference photo shows white whiskers. 

It is really difficult to avoid burning over the whiskers; especially when there are this many.  

I could embossing or engraving the whiskers, but in this situation that isn’t a great option.  The reason is that the direction of the whiskers and fur are the same in a number of places.   That means the pen tip can easily drop down into the groove and darken it up.

What I’ve found works best is to burn the whiskers a dark color to mark their location.  Once the burning is done I will scrape the dark color away to reveal white whiskers.

You may have noticed that I only burned the whiskers on the left side of the face.  That’s only because I was working in the area and got tired of trying to avoid them.

The board I’m burning on is a cradled piece of birch plywood. I positioned the artwork on the diagonal and put a one-inch (2.54 cm) border around the edges. 

If you look at the edges where the dark border will be, you can see a number of blotches and other burn marks.  Since the border will get burned to a very dark color, I use the edges to blot the pen tip. 

Blotting the pen tip removes any excess heat ensuring I don’t end up with unwanted dark blobs or other dark mishaps. 

I also use the border to test heat levels.  This is especially important if I switch pen tips or work on different projects between burn sessions on this one.

The orange fur is looking really good.  I’ve reburned over it a number of times to build up the color and tonal depth.   

I really like the contrast it provides for the left side of the mane. 

There needs to be something done to the background on the right side so that the mane can be seen on that side.

Backgrounds are not my strong point.  I always struggle with them and seldom like how they turn out.  

With this artwork, I started out trying to mimic the reference photo.  It was quickly looking too busy, and I was afraid that it would take attention away from the face.   

In this photo I’ve lightened up the background by using an ink pen eraser (also called a sand eraser) to remove some of the color.

Then I started working on trying to make the background fairly uniform in color.  The color seemed a bit dark to me.

Using the ink pen eraser, I removed some more color. 

Then I added subtle crack lines here and there.   This looks better to me.

You do not have to do the same thing, but you definitely need to add a background of some sort.  Otherwise the mane on the right side will be hard to see.

If you don’t want to spend a lot of time on the background, then dark the background adjacent mane.  You can let the color quickly fade away.

Notice the how the darkened background really improves the visibility of the white mane.   

Even though I have burned in most of the border frame, I leave a small area to blot and test the pen tip heat on. 

Another option is to have a piece of scrap wood nearby.  This works great for blotting to remove excess heat, but it might not work for heat testing.   

To get good heat test results, the scrap wood needs to be the same type as you’re burning on.   

This is a close up of the whiskers. 

The upper blue arrow is pointing to an experiment.  I used an X-acto knife to cut a thin line along the whiskers.  I thought that this would help me see them and make it easier to enlarge them.  It didn’t work that well for seeing them, and it didn’t help that much when enlarging them.

The yellowish arrow is pointing to a whisker I enlarged.  This was done by gently scraping along a whisker line with the tip of a sharp knife.

At this point the tiger is mostly done.  The main thing I still need to work on are the whiskers.

Since my X-acto knife experiment didn’t work, I burned all of the whiskers to a dark color.   This makes them much easier for me to see.  

Afterwards, I started gently scraping over the burn marks to remove the color.   Another benefit of burning the whiskers to a dark color, is that the writer pen tip creates a shallow groove.   This groove helps guide the tip of the knife when scraping.

There are a lot of whiskers, so it takes time to get them done. I estimate that each whisker took between 10-15 minutes. 

I will mention that if you have a small rotary tool, like a Dremel, you can use that instead. 

I cannot emphasize enough the need to use gentle pressure when scraping; especially if you’re working with plywood like I am. 

The reason is that small pieces of the plywood tend to chip off when working in areas where the whiskers cross.  I’ve circled a couple of areas where this happened on my artwork.   

I’m not sure if using a Dremel would prevent this.

The very last thing I did was paint the sides of my board. 

This gives the artwork a more finished look. 

I don’t burn them because it takes too long, and I lack the desire to waste the time it would take.   

Here’s how the artwork turned out.

IN CONCLUSION

That is it for this blog.  While the blog wasn’t a true tutorial, I found the limited information helpful.  I hope you try the artwork, and, more importantly, I hope you have fun burning.

Brenda

December 15, 2024

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