CONTENTS:
Page One
Selahattin Olceroglu Recreates Orientalist Works of
the Ottoman Empire
Page Two
James "Jim" Ward--From Woodcarving to
Pyrography
Cheryl Dow--A Pair of "How To" DVD
Videos
Page Three
Susan Millis: Pursuing a Unique Degree
|
Amber Eyes |
Self-taught Canadian artist James R. "Jim"
Ward lives in a small tourist town called Wasaga
Beach in central Ontario, Canada. He has been retired
for 14 years after a 35-year career with BCE, the
local Canadian telephone company. Jim remembers that
he got started in pyrography "by accident."
"About 8 years ago, I traded a scrimshawed
pendant for some blocks of wood to carve on. At that
time I had started to carve birds and was burning the
feathers with a Razortip unit with a 1S fixed
handpiece."
|
Brave With Rifle |
"About 2 years later, Jim continues, "while burning the feathers on a Blue Jay, I wondered if I could burn a picture on a flat piece of basswood, so I took a pencil and drew a wolf's head howling at the moon. I entered it in a competition in the beginners class and won a first and third best of class. Well, this sort of got me excited. I still carve, but my main interest is pyrography."
|
Jim Ward's Studio and
Gallery
|
Jim has his own studio, which he calls his studio and
gallery (and sometimes, when he is in trouble, it is
also known as "the dog house"). Notice the
many prize winning works he has to his credit. In his
own direct way, Jim explains his procedure as follows:
My art background is nil; I am a self-taught person
and have developed a style that works for me. I guess
my technique could be described as stippling or
dotting. Up here I am known as the dot
man.
I try to produce a 3-D effect with depth by shading.
For hair, fur, and feathers I still use short strokes.
My preferred wood is Basswood with the bark still on
the edges, and once in a while butternut. I do animals
and birds, etc., but doing people I find more
challenging.
All I ever use on any of my works is a 1S fixed hand
piece, nothing else. I use this blade with the sharp
edge facing upwards so that only the point will touch
the wood, and I hold it on an angle so that I can see
exactly what I am doing. I feel that touch is about
60 percent of the burning, and that the other 40
percent is heat.
Sue Walters, Carole Peters, Cheryl Dow, and Lynda
Eaves are all excellent pyrographic artists, and each
one of them has her own way of burning, just as I do.
Beginners to this art form will read, look, and listen
to other artists, but in the long run, they will
develop their own style of woodburning.
|
Alia & Mto., |
"This past March 17th, I took my latest piece of
burning and tried to enter it into the open class of
the Pyrography section. However, finally this year,
they had novice, beginners, intermediate, and open
with the following rule: Anyone who has won 3 firsts
would have to be moved to the Masters or Expert
division.
In the 6 years that I have been entering, they said
that I had won 5 firsts and that the gentleman who won
the other first was a chap that I had taught. So up
against all the best carvers in the area, I
reluctantly put in my Indian girl with a wolf, which I
named Alia & Mto.
I guess I got lucky and took first place. This show is
called the Kitchener Wood Show and is, as far as I am
concerned, one of the best shows in Canada."
See more examples of Jim Ward's award winning works in
his James
R. Ward Salon in the E-Museum of Pyrographic Art.
Look for the Kitchener
Wood Show on the internet and in Chip
Chats magazine, as well as Wood
Carving Illustrated magazine.
|
Woodburning with Cheryl
Dow, Discs 1 and 2 |
American pyrographic artist and teacher Cheryl Dow doesn't let the grass
grow under her feet. She is back again after writing
books and teaching in various places in the United
States each year, this time with a pair of really nice
videos that allow the student to view techniques at
close camera range in great detail.
Cheryl starts off on Disc 1 showing how to do a barn,
which reappears in Disc 2 when she shows how to do
grass and later again in how to use colored oil
pencils and liquin, as well. She shows various things
on each disc, usually demonstrating only a part of
each project, so as to cover more material and special
techniques in the time allotted.
She covers wood recommendations, use of her Optima
tool and points, shows how to do the barn, as well as
scenery, wolf fur, eyes, and feathers (an owl project)
in the first disc, and does more advanced projects (or
parts of them) in the second, including a raccoon, a
tiger mother and cub, coloring with Walnut Hollow oil
pencils, scales, a frog eye, tree bark, tagua nuts
(when she demonstrates the miniature details),
calligraphy, and even a human face. In each example,
she shows how to do that type of eyes, fur, nose,
background.
Cheryl chats away, amenably explaining things while we
watch each stroke at very close range as the projects
unfold. This is a most helpful format, which the
student can return to time and again as each new
project comes along. And, if you don't get it the
first time, you can revisit whenever you want to
remember how to do that special little effect or
detail.
And if these two DVDs and her busy teaching schedule
weren't enough, Cheryl Dow has organized a big
Pyrography Celebration in Cooksburg, Pennsylvania for
August of 2007. We'll talk about that in a later
issue of Pyrograffiti. Meanwhile, you can visit her
web site at www.cherylddow.com
to learn more about her DVDs and the Pyrography
Celebration, too.
|
Detail from An Ottoman
Bride |
2006, Kathleen M. Garvey Menéndez, all rights reserved.
