If you thought my wood burnings were pretty cool, I seriously encourage you to check the following two artists facebook pages out and give them a Like!

The first artist i would like to share with you is Ken Potter,
Located in Rhode Island, Ken is a favorite of mine for several reasons, the major one being that he is just so damn crazy! He has such a colorful personality that may not be for everyone and is so insanely humble and down to earth. I really dislike snooty, arrogant artists. You could have the most beautiful artwork imaginable, but if you have a crappy personality it makes it very hard to appreciate it. Love your work, be proud of your accomplishments, but never forget you can always do better, and that is exactly what Ken does in my opinion.

Like any artist, he is very critical of his work. A perfectionist.
His "mistakes" are laughable. You would NEVER know they were there had he not mentioned them and even then sometimes its like..."you are nuts."
To my knowledge he is not taking on any more commissions for a while so he can work on some personal art. However, there is never any harm in asking! You might be surprised at his answer =D His prices are VERY reasonable.

I am lucky enough to own 3 of his burnings, one of which I commissioned him to do as a Christmas gift to myself. Being a big fan of the movie Warm Bodies, I knew Ken would do a better job at burning a portrait of R than I ever would. He mentioned the idea of burning "what looks like a beating heart in there...hoping I can pull it off...because it looks pretty sweet in my head =D" I told him all I cared about was the portrait and gave him free reign to do whatever else he liked, having complete faith that he would just nail it. What he came up with was more than I could have ever hoped for!
http://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/946047_564676033612719_1167855621_n.jpg
The heart totally steals the show =D So if this doesn't get you to go check out the rest of his stuff, I don't know what would =P

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This second Pyrographer I only started watching recently.
Instead of wood, this gentleman likes to burn paper!
Yes, PAPER!
I have not updated my gallery with the couple of paper burns I have yet, but let me tell ya....paper is way more challenging than wood. This fact alone is what makes Clive Smith's work simply amazing.

Clive is located in New Zealand, which always makes me think of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Whats funny about this, is that you will find some familiar Tolkien characters amongst his work.

What got me started following Clive's work was a friend of mine constantly "Like"-ing his images and then later Ken actually sharing a link promoting Clive's page and making the bold statement of "the best pyrography on paper you will ever see" or something to that effect. One look through his burnings and you will see, that statement couldn't be any truer.
Each and every one of his burnings possesses such realism that you would think you are looking at a sepia toned photograph. It is simply amazing.

In my newness to burning on paper I have yet to even begin to fathom how he does it. For starters, you actually have to turn the heat on your burner up considerably higher for paper than you do for wood. I have also found keeping even shading to be much more difficult, but can be easier depending on the type of paper you use. So far I have tried Acrylic(very textured) paper, Watercolor paper (semi textured), and Bristol (very smooth) and discovered that the watercolor has been the best to work with. Ideally you would want to burn on hot pressed paper from what I have been told and I am sure that makes a big difference. When viewing Clive's work he usually posts the type of paper he used in case you are curious.

Still, no matter what kind of paper I manage to get my hands on, I don't think I could ever come close to being as good as this masterful pyrographer. In a lot of ways he seems very comparable to Ken in personality, I could totally see them as best friends.

According to his page he is indeed taking commissions and is also selling some of his work! His prices are more than reasonable but I have no idea what commissioning him is like, I hope to one day remedy that =D
Now that I have hyped you up about this guy, here is an example of his awesomeness.
REMEMBER this is on PAPER!
http://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t1/1383182_243416572482530_1349219070_n.jpg
Isn't this incredible?!?!?
He has so many amazing images but this one gets me every time. A truly talented individual!

Thanks so much for taking the time to read all this!
Please do check these guys out, you won't regret it =D