El Andalous - Woodburning

 

My Finished Product

I’ve run out of internet, so this blog will be a bit late this week.

Anyway, I’m back to doing my best to live the dream. I’ve been feeling the need for a change as my days are regularly taken up with swimming or snorkeling, writing or critiquing others’ works in progress (maybe that’ll be another blog), and reading when I can fit it in. As well as the daily items of cooking, cleaning, eating, etc. I enjoy all of this, but sometimes I need to do something different.

I saw there was an arts and crafts group in Hurghada and they were offering a woodburning workshop. I hadn’t come across this before; it’s basically burning a picture onto wood. I really loved the example picture in the advertisement, so decided I would sign up. Fortunately, Kathryn agreed to join me, so we were able to go in her car and at least I’d know one person there.

It very sensibly didn’t start until 11am. The person running it Linda) was Dutch, and the workshop was held in a flat she has for this purpose. Four of us took part. The other two ladies were also Dutch, but I don’t think Linda knew them. The small numbers enabled sufficient social distancing.  And, of course, this is Egypt, so even in winter, windows and doors can provide ventilation.

Apparently, in some countries, they do woodburning at school. I feel I missed out!

As always, it’s nice to be somewhere new. This was in an area called El Kawther (sometimes written El Kawser); it’s near the Egyptian hospital where I went when I had my broken leg all those years ago. There are several cafes and shops in this area and a popular apartment complex among Westerners called the British Resort is also there. I've been in the area before, but not the complex where the workshop took place (which was opposite the British Resort).

I need to live by the sea, but I can see the appeal of living downtown. It’s easier to get about, it’s cheaper (by quite a lot), there’s lots to do. The apartment had a large balcony, so it was lovely to sit there at lunch.

To my surprise, we used carbon paper (ha! Remember that?!) to trace the picture we wanted onto the wood. I supplied a picture of a lionfish but I think she already had some appropriate for tracing (there are special designs with the main lines only to make it easier to do).

After you’ve traced the picture outline onto the wood, you use a hot pen to burn the picture permanently into the wood, using the tracing as your guide. On a more advanced level, you can vary the pressure you put on the pen to do shading, so you get colours ranging from black to light brown.

Some people (well, everyone apart from me) colored theirs in for the final result. Since I was doing a lionfish, which is in any case brown, I didn’t bother, and I also wanted to keep the look of woodburning at the forefront. I’m a purist at heart!

The lady running it offered soup or sandwiches for lunch, plus coffee and cake mid-afternoon, so the pace was very relaxed.

Once you’ve finished, you use sandpaper to get rid of any stray marks of carbon paper, brush it with teak oil to enhance the look, choose a way to frame the picture (I used a wide cord strip), put felt on the back, and then her husband attached the chain to hang it. We returned the following week to complete these final tasks.

I’m quite tempted to buy my own equipment and do more at home, but I have writing to get on with as my priority.