In 2020, during some time away from work, I dove into digital art. And I quickly developed a habit that was slowly draining the joy out of it: I would zoom in. Then zoom in more. The closer you get, the more you can refine, and the more you refine, the better it looks when you're zoomed out. I was putting 40 to 60 hours into single paintings. The mistakes were perfectly hidden. The work looked impressive. And I was miserable.

When I discovered wood burning, people around me laughed a little. You didn't know about it? I did that as a kid. No — I genuinely didn't. And when I tried it for the first time, something clicked that digital painting had slowly stopped doing.

You cannot zoom in on wood. I was in a safe place with my art again.

How pyrography works

Pyrography is drawing with heat. A burning pen with a metal tip gets hot enough to scorch wood, and the darkness of each mark depends on temperature, pressure, and how long you linger. Move fast and light, you get a soft tan line. Slow down, press in, and the wood goes deep brown, almost black. The grain of the wood is always present — sometimes it cooperates with your marks, sometimes it pushes back. Either way it becomes part of the finished piece.

The smell is part of it. Basswood has a clean, almost sweet scorch. The pace slows down to match the material. Fine tip work especially demands a stillness that quiets other things.

Finishing with Danish oil

When a piece is done burning, I finish it with Danish oil. Practically, it seals and protects the surface and deepens the contrast between burned and unburned wood. But it does something else I didn't expect: once the oil goes on, I can see the work more objectively. The finish makes it easier to feel good about what was created without fixating on imperfections. It stops being a record of my effort and starts being a thing that exists on its own.

What I've made with it

The fantasy map in my shop was generated randomly — I scattered rice across the basswood surface and let where it landed determine the landmasses, then developed the geography by hand from there. At the start it's like looking at an abstract painting and drawing in the land masses you see. There are rules for fantasy maps — geography has logic even in invented worlds — and I try to follow them. Magic can coexist with constraints. Mountains, forests, coastlines, the suggestion of places that don't exist yet.

The Resting Hare piece came from a different instinct. Following the contours of the animal, adding fur texture line by line — I fell into it. That state where time stops mattering and the work just moves through you. Captured in burned lines.

Both pieces are one of a kind. Pyrography originals don't have editions. There's one board, one burn, one owner.

Curious about the other mediums I work in? Check out The Mediums I Work In for a deep dive (or to continue down the rabbit hole) into how I got into each one and what they mean to me.