Pyrography: How to Woodburn an Eagle Part 1 – Torso, Black Feathers, and White Feathers

This project is available at https://www.burningwithsharon.com/pro... .

In this video I share with you how to woodburn an eagle. This first of two videos covers burning the torso and also beginning to lay out the basic structure of the wing where it stretches out from the body.

The reason this is important is because creating form in a subject with dramatic whites and blacks can pose a challenge. So in this video I show you how to approach this project without confusion.

Transcript

Hi this is Sharon and here’s a sampler from one of my workbook projects. Enjoy!

In this first of two videos I’m going to share with you how to wood burn this eagle. Right now I’m just laying out the structure of the wing.

Moving into the torso I’m going to make a distinction between the head and the body. I want to undercut a little bit here and that will emphasize the white on the head of the eagle.

As I work through the body of the eagle I angle my burns to create form. I don’t want them to look flat. Using my pyrographic smudge technique I lay in the body of the feathers. Now watch where you are going when you do this because the direction of those feathers will make a really big difference.

Notice how I’m curving around. Fill in slowly and use random strokes. Be careful you’re not creating a fence-post look or some sort of a look that appears to have a pattern otherwise it will look like your eagle’s wearing a sweater.

As you continue filling in watch your values. Remember that the light will hit in certain areas and those areas will be a bit lighter than the areas going into shadow. So as you come around, think of there being concentric lines around the image and follow that around to give the image form so that it is three dimensional.

Once you’ve filled in all the feathers of the torso you can go around and refine. Again remember even though this area is dark remember certain areas are going to be lighter than others. So take a look at areas that are definitely in shadow and darken those up.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little lesson for more information on pyrography and learning to burn