My Woodburning Process

(Note: This was originally posted on October 14, 2024 on my old blog, JessLynnBabblin.')

Howdy! I've been woodburning for the past year, fine tuning the process as I go. Folk often ask about it so I'm taking the opportunity to break it down.

First I draw the design. Often I do so on tracing paper over the piece of wood to ensure it fits. Then I transfer it with charcoal pencil, rubbing from the tracing paper onto the wood with a spare wine cork. The project outlined, I'll touch up lighter areas with the charcoal pencil. Erasers are ineffective on charcoal and wood so I use sandpaper to remove mistakes.

Initially I was working with the woodburning wands that could double as soldering irons that plug directly into the wall. These had no mechanism for altering the heat and I couldn't achieve dark black shading with them. Eventually I invested in a woodburning kit that includes a power source that can charge two wands at once, as well as the wands themselves, and their various tips. Setting the heat nearly to the maximum temperature, I line with a narrow tip.

The linework done, I saturate the wood with water and get to painting. First I do the highlights with white gouache paint. The paint is opaque and colors painted over it are bolder than those painted on nude wood. With the whites laid out, I go over top with watercolor paint. Less pigment over a wider wet area gives for a softer gradient and is preferred for blending. Too much pigment ends up looking like acrylic paint, or marker, which can look cool, but is rarely the desired effect (for me).

To lend clarity to what is now a blurryish design with a muted outline, I re-line the image in black paint, which can be acrylic, watercolor, or gouache. Whatever is available will do. I've even used marker when that worked. I am open to the possibility of colored outlines in the future.  Usually, I spray glossy varnish overtop after lining the woodburning. See, for the watercolors to have that nice blend seep into the wood, I have to apply the paint before the first varnish. The outline, however, can actually benefit from my having varnished first. The glossy exterior is appropriate for marker lining, and the burn-divot can work to contain watery paints that otherwise would have been absorbed, if that makes sense. The burn lines are jagged inside, not level, and the varnish spray evens them out somewhat.

So, either before or after lining, I spray varnish. If before, I spray again after. Varnish is the finishing touch on the front. As for the back, I mark where the hook must be positioned for the piece to hang straight. Then I screw the hook in, adding a few washers so the screw doesn't go fully through the thin wood slice. Beneath the hook, I sign my name via woodburning with the hot wand. Though, my sister just got me a personalized brand with my married name so I think I'll start using that.

Normally, that's the end. However, when making glow-in-the-dark designs, I apply acrylic glow-paint over the desired areas in thin watery layers, allow those to dry, and varnish over them. If I paint thickly, the glow is more intense with less labor, but the paint dries lumpy. Can't have that! I've found that it takes about seven layers for a nice smooth glow. Again, the piece isn't done until varnished. A cool thing is that I can use paint markers over glow-paint in order to tint it the desired hue. While glow paint isn't opaque, it does carry some minimally pale green pigment which is rarely the desired color.

A headache I've been faced with is handling cracks in woodburnings. To avoid this, I've taken to soaking wood before use, in order to set cracked pieces aside. But, I only started doing this because I was having the issue. After much trial and error, I've found that the solution to cracked woodburnings is to seal the back of the crack with hot glue, and the front with acrylic paint that's been mixed with flour. Pure acrylic or gouache paint reduces too much upon drying so while it appears level with the wood prior, it's not. I use a business card or similar flat edged object to scrap excess paint from the crack. Sanding is an option for once the crack is full, but risks dirtying the area, so better if it's flat to start with. I haven't tried clay but I have tried non-hot craft glues and wasn't impressed by how they pooled out of the back, demanding more sanding. The earlier in the process the crack occurs, the easier to resolve. I noticed recently that the cracking seems to occur when I saturate a small area of the wood with water, as opposed to the entire thing. Going forward, I'm aiming for full saturation during the painting phase.

I hope you found any of this informative! Toodles!

Update: I've found that pine is prone to cracking when wet but that paulownia wood is not. I do not need to soak the entire paulownia wood slice, and doing so actually causes bleed, meaning the paint spreads beyond the woodburned lines unless I've burned very deeply. Paulownia is harder to source so I only offer 7.5inch widths and above right now, though.