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Pyro How-To While I was doing the Elvis wood burning, I took a set of pictures of the steps and methods I use to create a wood burning. This was a fun project and while it may look daunting to the beginner, if you follow the steps below, you will see that it is not really that hard after all. This was done on a bass wood slab. Step 1 The first step is to get the image onto the piece of wood. You can of course free hand the drawing if you are a great artist. If you are not a talented artist you can create a drawing by tracing the major elements of a photo. That is what I did with this particular picture. You don't need to include every detail in the photo as the shading is what will make the wood burning end up like the photo. After you have your pattern or tracing, transfer the image to the wood. I use graphite paper to trace my patterns onto the wood. It is erasable and if you make a mistake, no problem fixing it. DO NOT USE CARBON PAPER! It is very hard to remove a line if you use carbon paper. You will have to sand it off.   Step 2 Once the drawing or pattern is on the wood, you can start by going over the lines with your wood burner. In this shot you can see that most of the lines in the face, border and the name are done. I've also started to do some of the shading around the one eye, the mouth and the hair. The name has been completely shaded.   Step 3 More shading work has been done in the hair area. You can see the to achieve the swirls and highlights in the hair, some of the lines will be very dark to create accents. Some work has also been done around the mouth and nose area and I've basically finished with the right eye.   Step 4 I have finished the border, hair and face completely now. You can see where I did not shade in the hair. This is the direction the light is coming from and creates a highlight in the photo. So by watching how the shading is done, you can create the same effect. You need to be aware of where the light direction and how it can affect your picture. I also added a few bits of shading on the face to suggest the cheek bones, the shadow from the nose, etc.. I also added another text element to the piece and have started work on the cable-knit sweater.   Step 5 Here is the finished piece. The sweater is done and was the hardest element of the piece to do. Overall, I think it turned out better than I thought it would. All that's left is to apply a finish. If you want the piece to remain almost the color of the raw wood, I would suggest water based varnish as it does not yellow as much as regular varnish or urethane.

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