Pyrography practice...

I got my pyrography pen through the post today and I'm desperate to try it out! I quickly painted up an illustration which I wanted to communicate this idea of a loss of identity or a gain of identity through the idea of the hair on everybodys head - particularly the 50's era. It looks to show how a 'style' is true of a certain time or fashion and so could be anybody.

I've taken this painting and used tracing paper to trace the image, then to use carbon paper which I bought, to transfer the image onto the wood, which was advised on a tutorial I watched.

This is how it turned out. It was very tricky to get the hang of and get a fluid motion of drawing as you have to hold it in a certain way and apply it to the wood a certain way. I've found that the wood you are using is important, as there are grooves in most woods and the pen slowly burns away and if you've got pressure on the pen nib, then it can get stuck for a second which just burns a hole and you have to quickly take the nib off. You can see examples of where this has happened below:

It was very fun and is nice as it's not just an image, but an image burnt into something with thats organic and unique, and the image also has a texture and smell to it! It was a good first attempt and got me used to the pen, although it's going to take lots more practice.