Writing With Fire: Greta Garbo

Seeing as how I have new people following my blog, I decided to take a few pictures of what the process is like for when I do one of my pyrographic portraits.

This piece was inspired by the Greta Garbo photography taken by Russell Ball in 1927. Like many people I have a fascination with Greta Garbo and I particularly love the photographs where she has her thrown back to accentuate her perfect "sphinx" profile.



This photo above gives you an idea of what the "pre-burn" is. I generally deal with uncomplicated pieces since I'm an amateur at this medium still.



And the photo above shows you after I've burnt it. I use a Walnut Hollow pyrography pen and I do all of my burnings by hand. I put my initials "A.G." At the bottom of the piece along with the date from when I finished. Next, I'm going to coat it with Minwax Polyacrylic Protective Finish and put felt on the back to further protect the wood and apply a sawtooth hanger to hang it on the wall. And when I'm done with those steps, I'll take pictures and post them! :)