Wood Burning Techniques – Wood Burning Stamps
I’m finally experimenting with new wood burning techniques in making wood stamps. I have wanted to do this for quite some time and I’m finally able to put my thoughts to work. Wood stamps have been around forever and they are usually carved, but I wanted to try it with wood burning instead.
I have the wood burning equipment handy, so why not give it a shot. I’m also using balsa wood and pine wood. They are both soft and easy to burn. Watch me burn negative space into the wood creating a tree and birds for an inked art piece.
Materials Used:
- Burnmaster Eagle Pro: https://amzn.to/2SsQCaR
- Balsa Wood: https://amzn.to/30AwnMChttps://amzn.to/2MNwc8u
- Fabric Paint: https://amzn.to/2Yu6hIs
- Craft Paint: https://amzn.to/2zrQKk4
Prepping the Wood
First things first, I need to prep the wood for creating my stamps. I have some left over pine blocks of wood that I can use for this project. Ideally, I would use a whole sheet of wood, but I’m trying to reuse what I have in the shop since this is a new wood burning technique experiment. If it goes well, I’ll start using larger sheets to do this.
I sketched a simple tree and ground into the blocks. I’m keeping this design really simple so I can focus on how the burning and ink goes. As I progress in this technique, I can focus more on what the art looks like, but for now, this simple design will help me see how the burning and inking process will work.
Burning
These little birds in the balsa wood will burn away very easily. Balsa wood is very soft and burns like butter, so turning them into stamps is a piece of cake. I’m using my burnmaster eagle pro on this wood burning technique. It gets very hot and I know it will get more than hot enough to burn away the negative space on this wood.
Now, I’m moving onto the ground and tree pieces. I am going to start burning away at the negative space on these pine blocks. I’m starting with a straight edge so I can outline the areas that need to stay unburned.
Adding Color
New wood burning techniques need color too. It took a while to burn away what I needed, but now that it’s done I can start adding the acrylic paint. I have these little rollers to add the paint. I’m going to squirt the paint onto a parchment paper surface, get the roller saturated with paint and then apply it to the stamp.
This was the super fun part, too bad it only took a second. I got to squish paint and roll it around. Super satisfying. Once the paint was loaded, all I had to do was roll the relief area of my blocks and stamp it to the water color paper.
I was concerned about lining it up, but all I had to do was align it with the edge of the paper and it came out pretty good. I used my brush to fill in the gaps and connect some of the missing spaces. Overall, I’m super happy with how it came out.
The birds were super easy to stamp and the best part is I can use these stamps again.
I added a blue wash in the background with my left over paint. I felt like the background needed a little extra something to give it some depth and that was a simple way to add a layer of scenery.
And it’s all done. It’s not a master piece work of art, but for an experiment, I’m super pleased with the finished product. I will definitely use this wood burning technique again in my art. I will try a more complex work of art next time and try to find a larger sheet of wood to use.
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