Let me share my favorite embellishment technique with you:

Woodburning tip: Skew

I like using a wood burning tool to outline the pattern borders before coloring. That helps me to achieve two things:

• Emphasize perimeter lines by making them dark/black. Accenting coloring with black lines is a popular technique that some painting artists use (especially water-color and pastel painters).
• Prevent paint bleeding across the borders. Outlining with a wood-burning tool works similar to scoring borders with a sharp knife. The idea is to cut/separate wood fibers so the paint does not bleed across the borders.

Strawberry Bowl

The “Strawberry Bowl” project was turned from basswood and embellished using the described technique. The bowl is 4” (10 cm). It was painted using felt-tip markers. The finish is acrylic spray.

The markers are very bright and fit the Christmas season very well. Other seasons I like using acrylic paint (heavily diluted with water): it is much easier to handle and it may look bright or soft as needed. I apply at least two coats of diluted acrylic paint to achieve better color-particle distribution that is thin enough to keep the wood grain still visible through.

Turned Bells

These bells were turned from maple and were embellished with diluted acrylics and finished with Tung oil. You may see the grain through the painted leafs. The pieces of maple wood were almost white but after applying oil it darkened the wood a little and exposed the before-non-visible grain.

The embellishment ornaments were drawn, burned, and painted freehand (no stencils used). It required a steady hand, time, and magnifying glasses. Using good paint brushes helps a lot.

Happy Carving & Turning,
Roman