Innovative Artist: Art of Pyrography, The Drawing with fire

Learn to burn: illuminate your pyrographic art with mixed media, gilding and natural materials.

Library Journal: This well-structured primer will appeal to artists looking for a new medium, as well as beginning to intermediate–level pyrographers interested in adding new skills and techniques.

Cherry Ferris throws open the world of wood burning with a new art-led approach and shows you how to use different media and materials to set off your pyrographic artwork.

Packed with encouraging, practical and insightful advice on pursuing your own artistic path, this book covers everything you need to draw with fire – whether you are an experienced pyrographer or want to expand your horizons with a new medium. Containing:

• A brief overview and history of the subject
• A tools and equipment section
• An introduction to the basic techniques and information on surfaces that you can safely burn.
• How to transfer designs onto surfaces and incorporate a mixed media approach by looking at shading techniques
• Introducing color into your work
• Playing with backgrounds
• How to protect your finished pieces.
  

Chapters include:

• Color: Incorporating colored pencils (for bright rainbow shades), watercolor (for its luminous transparency) and oils (for their buttery, blendable consistency and jewel-like colors)

• Using resin to finish your work – which results in a beautiful glass-like finish

• Using gold leaf to add a touch of magic

Cherry is a self taught artist who explores the beauty, detail and complexity of the wonderful world around us, particularly its animals and nature. She likes to use many types of media and is versed in pyrography, pastels, watercolour, coloured pencils and oils. Cherry also loves the heightened detail in botanical illustration and often uses these techniques alongside many others to create her eclectic variety of art forms.
Cherry often uses the art of pyrography within her work to burn or scorch designs onto natural materials and surfaces, such as wood panels and rag paper. Inspired by her fascination with colour, pigment and materials, Cherry is at her happiest when she is able to bring them together to create a piece of art.
Cherry has had her work shown at the Wildwood Gallery on Dartmoor, the Derwent Pencil Museum at Keswick, The Wildlife Art Society International, and the South West Academy Fine and Applied Art Open Exhibition 2019. Her work sells well, and is in private collections both in the UK and overseas. She also runs workshops for beginners to more advanced pyrographers in which people have an opportunity to learn the essential techniques and to experiment with new ones.
Cherry lives in Devon, UK.