My girlfriend Kimberley is a gifted artist with a number of media and has recently taken to pyrography which is the decoration of materials by burning on them. We are working on making a new website for this endeavor and I thought I would post here not only to advertise but to share these beautiful things with you all.

She is currently using Pine pieces from a crafts store but we are buying some much prettier hardwoods with nicer patterns to use. I sand the pieces with 400 grit sandpaper and she burns them with a soldering iron with a fine tip. Then she burns the holes (these will be going on necklaces of course and possibly on nice keychains when I can find some) and paints the wings on the critters.

Please bear in mind that I am not a professional photographer, my camera is not super great and the lighting was less than perfect. When it comes time to post them on the site we will be hiring one of those professionals to take quality photos. In the meantime she is stuck with my amateur image skills . Despite that some of them are not as clear as the actual pieces are I think they came out pretty well. The ones pictured below were completed before I realized we should be sanding them to give the easiest working surface as well as the finest end product. Some of them have been stained and we are experimenting with different stains to see what looks the best.

Kimberley has completed 56 of them in about a week given that she is a full time veterinary technician (the only one at the hospital who has a degree as such aside from the doctors so she works a lot) and does between 3 and 8 a night not including the one day she has off per week.

Anyway here they all are, I apologize if your connection is not optimized for image viewing but I just couldn't bring myself to make them thumbnails or simple links. We both hope you enjoy and look forward to seeing you on our site. One other note, the images below were taken before the finishing touches such as removing the burned look from the holes and before sealing. She really wanted pictures of them today and I figured since we had some I might as well do something with them.


Here they are...

73 views and not a single comment... discouraging

The work is very nice and she is very talented. I do have a suggestion that might present her work with a little more sophistication. Her work is very reminiscent of scrimshaw and think that if she could use either a natural or synthetic material using her artistic technique, the items may have a greater marketability. For natural materials look to bone, reclaimed ivory from piano keys and tagua nut (aka vegetable ivory). I work with several artists in Ecuador who use tagua nut to make jewelry, which I bring back with me to sell as part of a social and economic development project. Here is a link to a company that markets tagua beads, etc, for craft use Tagua Nut Ivory . I have seen on Ebay, reclaimed ivory piano keys for craft use and several companies sell mammoth ivory/bone for craft use. There are a number of companies that sell resin materials (synthetic replacement for whale/elephant ivory) for craft use. Custom work would also expand her potential sales base.

Pete

OK, right or wrong, the thought that went through my mind is that after posting in just two threads you created a thread to "pre-advertize" for an upcoming commercial venture unrelated to any existing ETS threads. That seems to be on the edge of the forum rules.

As I understand the rules, if you were offering these items for sale without being related to a particular discussion, it would be against the forum's rules ... but you're not. So, you haven't done anything wrong.

If you had posted just a few pics, I might not have given this a second thought - it is cool art! ... but the volume of pics started to look like a catalog ... I found myself surprized not to see a price list in there somewhere.

Again, this is just my own personal thinking. If you, or anyone else feels offended by that, I'll apologize right here and now, as that is not my intent.

Ken

The pendants are nice and I wish you all the luck in the world with them.
I am agreeing with KenK on this one though, it is very close to spam.

Have you tried posting on Deviant Art or Elfwood?

deviant
http://www.deviantart.com/

Elf
http://www.elfwood.com/

Those sites are designed for just what you are doing here.

How is pine not a natural material?

I think Pete is referring to what it is against. Even black leather, not so much. I grew up spending the weekends that weren't in the woods or on the range with my grandfather at craft shows- I would go with a dull jewel tone felt (think HIGH END pool table) for backing, or maybe something like a nice cotton weave that has been slightly draped (that is cheap- decent bed sheets can be made to work). Nothing too bright or shiny, but you don't want pastels. A warm grey, maybe, but not pure white or black, and not leather. At least if she's planning on doing the shows.

Just my humble opinion. I haven't done the shows for 20 years.

And I'd like to go with something sca mentioned- broader web presence. Deviant Art has a MASSIVE membership and is just about every kind of media you can imagine. I know Elfwood is still around, but they aren't what they were five years ago.

You might try Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/

It would probably be a more likely site than this one.

Nice work though it seems to be, it's not why I come here.

Sue

Here are ones not in the first post, the large Werewolf was done a week or so ago before we started sanding the pieces (he is 2 1/2" x 1 5/8" x 3/16"). While not as finely detailed as these new ones I still like it. Here are the ones Kimberley did tonight.

Notice the difference in quality between these and the bat at the bottom. That piece was one of the first made and was rather rough in texture. These I sanded to a fine finish which allows much greater detail. I took great pains to make the pictures look as near as possible to the actual color and texture.

Pine is of course a natural material. What I am looking at is showcasing her talent on a material that I belive will increase marketability. If you take a look at these examples of scrimshaw, the artwork pops off of the background material. Again, this just my opinion and is based upon personal taste. I prefer a more ivory or bone material then the flat wood shapes. Now if she were use a more natural shape, almost 3-D, the artwork would have a more appealing and integrated aspect.

Ebay Pendant

Ebay Pendant

Ebay Pendant

Ebay Resin Pendant

Pete