One of my favorite hand drawn pieces that I’ve woodburned! Here’s a step-by-step!
1.) Decide what you want to draw, and find reference pictures! I wish I still had my reference pictures saved but I think I used like five of them to draw this.
2.) Draw on PAPER first! I know some people draw right on wood- I erase wayyyy too much and find it tends to leave eraser marks. No bueno. I like to trace the outline of the piece of wood onto the paper so I know exactlyyyy how big to draw my design.
3.) Transfer your paper to wood with graphite paper. (I got mine here). Graphite paper is black looking paper with graphite on one side (like from a pencil). When you place is under your design (shiny side down) and then trace on top of your design, it will transfer the design to your wood. I know some people think graphite paper is too messy because it might leave some stray marks and be hard to remove, but it’s what I use.
6.) Choose your tip. I tend to use the looped tip the most- it’s very versatile but can still do fine details as well. Make sure your woodburning tool is OFF while changing tips, and to be on the safe side, I tend to unplug mine as well.
5.) Time to burn! Turn your woodburning tool on, and do a test patch on a similar piece of wood. The graphite will burn faster than the wood, so I prefer to test with graphite on my test wood. When you picked a good temperature, you can start on your design!
6.) Trace your design with the woodburning tool using minimal pressure- the heat should be doing the work, not you! Move relatively quickly to avoid the burn spreading off your line, and be aware that different knots of wood might burn faster, causing splotches.
7.) Neaten it up! I go back over my lines a few times to clean them up before adding any shading. You can also use a razor blade to kind of scrape away any splotches in your line. Just be sure to scrape as little as possible so you don’t remove a chunk of your wood!
8.) If you’re doing any shading, make sure your tool is off and cooled all the way before changing tips. After changing to a shading tip, redo the testing process before burning on your actual piece. With shading, it’s even more important to move your tip quickly so you get an even shade.
9.) Ta-da! Your piece is complete! You can add a quick spray of polyurethane finish to seal it up, or you can leave it be if it’s not going to be coming in contact with any moisture!
