A lot of pyrographers have asked me about painting my pieces. For those of you who haven’t worked with paints, I thought I would give you my top five list of paints that I think work best with this medium:
- Watercolor Paint Watercolor is buildable allowing you to put down a thin wash to get a tint of color. You can then build it up using different colors or simply darkening the color based on your needs. Watercolors give you an airy, translucent look whereas something like acrylic is more opaque. Also, since it is water-based, clean-up is easy.
- Watercolor Pencil Working with watercolor pencils is a lot like coloring in a coloring book. It’s fairly easy to lay down different colors and shades. Pencils give you better precision than paintbrushes and, since it is water-soluble, you can then blend colors using water.
- Acrylic Acrylic is a thicker paint that is less forgiving than watercolors. You need to be very precise, especially when working with pyrography, to make sure not to get it in the burn lines as it will not blend in. Acrylics are good when you are working with hard, flat edges and shading/gradients aren’t necessary.
- India Ink India inks tend to be more vibrant. They do not bleed and once they are dry they are permanent. This means a great deal of precision is required as you will have no way to correct it after it is down without it looking sloppy. A little bit goes a long way depending on how vivid you want your colors which is good because they tend to be more expensive.
- Gel Stain Gel stains are versatile as you can use them as a stain and as a paint. Stains let you color the piece without covering up the natural look of the wood. If you paint with gel stains make sure you seal your piece so it doesn’t bleed.
See my gallery below for examples of each type of paint.
Those are my picks for the five best paints for pyrographers. What is your favorite? Tag us @bz_furfur and let us know. Until next time, stay unique.
