Historical Paint For Leather?

[MMArmoury]

What sort of paint for leather would have been used before the invention of acrylic paints?

[b2k]

linseed oil and powders for oil colors, at least it is the way leather was painted here in Italy during the middle ages. linseed oil give a tough and flexible coating to leather.

[MMArmoury]

Would that be boiled linseed oil? Or the same kind of oil used in artist's oil paints? Because I have read that you should wait at least six months for an oil painting to dry before putting a varnish over it. And I painted something once with oils that was still sticky five years later. I cannot wait that long for things to dry.

[Tina]

I did an experiment some 5 years ago with artist oil paint (Talens "Rembrandt") and had no problems at all with a sticky surface.

My experience with oil on canvas was to leave it to dry around 5 weeks so I did a similar timeframe for the leather. I then sealed it with Angelus acryllic finisher and it worked beautifully.

My oilpaint is quite "oily" in itself so I did take some out by having the paint on paper towels and more used a "dry brush" technique painting the motif. I did not use oil as a medium but artist terpentine (small amounts). After the drying persiod I added some pure neatsfoot oil, a few more days of drying then the sealer.

I have to say that this is the most beautiful "painting paint" I have done on leather, it's way more interesting to look at than the ones painted with acryllic paint.

Here's the old piece today...

Ps . The white in the background is acryllic paint, I think it showes.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Tina

[b2k]

boiled linseed oil, but do test it on some scraps, depending on the tanning and the finish, the oil could slightly change in color.

Another way was to use guaches (diluted tempers), but could crack if the item is lexed.In this case the finish could be a light coat of water suspended waxes, I don't know how it's called in english, here is sold by the brand name 'top-polish' and is made by Gubra.

[Trox]

Hello, if you read the old manual i found in this topic http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=49430 you will see several methods of coloring leather, mostly staining, dying. It was several ways to do it, its all in there.

Tor

[HollyNelson]

The original patent leather was achieved by applying multiple layers of a linseed oil mixture to leather. And linseed oil was the basis of the original Linoleum. Linseed oil is really cool stuff.

BTW, linseed oil doesn't "dry" as such -- rather, the short molecules of the liquid oil link up once exposed to oxygen, to convert into longer chains which are no longer liquid. They will continue to do this, though slowly, for centuries. (!) which is one reason very old oil paintings develop a crackled appearance.