Engraving! This is my first piece, practice, but it was so much fun! Can’t wait to do more.
This is from a picture of a bonsai tree I found on the net.
I used a couple of different types of burins from my wood engraving toolbox to do this.
The process is pretty straight forward – it’s very much like wood block carving, or engraving – both relief printmaking processes – which have been a major passion of mine for about 7 years.
see my old printmaking site – Coffee Grinder Press
Here is a picture of the burins I used. I draw a picture on a piece of paper, do a graphite transfer, then carve over the lines with the burins.
The engraving looks like a piece of art. It ia alternative to Makie on Japanese pens. But this will never wear off as can happen to Makie after long use of the pen (like brassing of gold plated clips clip and other appointments in a pen).
Thanks. Hopefully I’ll get as good at this as some of those Makie artists. 🙂 I enjoy it enough for sure.
Absolutely phenomenal! Love, love, love it!!!
Thanks!
Very beautiful! Is it already a pen? Or is that the barrel, maybe?
Thanks! Just a rod of orange hard rubber.
Really neat, Shawn! How are you doing that? A dremel? Gorgeous work, seems like a natural for you to pursue.
Thanks! I’ll add this detail to the post above. 🙂
Thanks for explaining, Shawn! Double wow! You continue to rock.
How do you make the lines darker than the rest of the blank ? And how do you protect the finish after the engraving… only CA ? But it looks fantastic… Can you describe the graphite transfer process in more details ? You really are an artist… don’t think I would have the patience to do this…
The graphite transfer is the same that printmakers have been using for centuries. Nothing complicated there. No CA. I don’t use the stuff at all for anything and I will not. I only sand and buff. I finish the pen before I engrave, then I give a buff again before the infill. The lines are made darker with an in-fill, a sort of waxy paint.