ClayB

The thing that is really great about this forum is that I can write up what I know (which isn't nearly as much as some of you think) and send it to Johanna and she can do her magic and here it is for everyone to see (along with a really nice into, Thanks Jo). I don't have to drive to CA or CO or Britain for anyone to see it, although I'd love to go to Austrailia someday, anyone wanna have a class over there????? Nobody has to write me a big check for the chance to throw rotten fruit at me! I am pretty sure Regis would behave, and MAYBE Bert would, but Kathy and Anne, I really doubt it. Even if you throw like girls, in a small room sooner or later you might get in a lucky shot. I'm really gonna try to do something in Rapid City this year at Clay's store there. I'll let you all know if we get something figured out but you'll have to check your guns and your rotten fruit at the door. But seriously, thanks all of you for your kind words and encouragement. It's what keeps me trying to do my part to make sure this is the best leatherworking resource on the internet.

Doing a goodle search for zebra pictures brought up gave me a lot to look at, and one picture of a zebra with it's mouth open. I promised that next month's figure carving challenge would be an easy one. Can you (Kathy) or Tina draw me an easy to do pattern of a tree frog????? Not sure if this is really a tree frog or not, but this is what she wanted. I think the coloring will be more of a challenge than the actual carving. We'd all love to see some of your paintings Tina!

You mean like this Kathy? Jessi (my daughter) really liked the first one and tried claiming it, but it already has a home, so I got to do another That was fine cuz I kinda like this pattern and my boss doesn't seem to want to come back from vacation anyway. There were a few little things I wanted to try differently anyway, like backgrounds. I was thinking of putting a pocket on the back of this one and maybe carving the lion from last months challenge on it, but Jessi said how about a blue tree frog with black spots Maybe I'll skip the pocket idea I was pretty happy with my paint job until I saw yours. Now I am gonna have to decide if I want to start all over. I did the shading on the second one a lot darker than the first and it does show up some through the white. Your stripes sure look better than mine and the detail on the nose and mouth on yours are really cool. I printed yours out and will have to see what I can do. I got lots to learn yet!

When you teach in person, people can heckle you and throw rotten fruit and stuff. I feel pretty safe way out here in the boonies. I know Kathy and you can't throw this far Maybe someday I'll teach a class but for now I am happy doing lessons right here.

Kathy, Your zebra looks great! I really like the color and shading. It would have been nice if you would have finished it before I colored mine so I could have stole some ideas from you. I did the shading before putting the white on, and it doesn't show through much at all. I hope some more people give this a try too, I learn something from everyone I see. Thanks for playing this time. Clay

Thanks you guys (and gals). I have been working at learning the extreme embossed stuff for a few years now and between all the lessons from Jan Schoonover and Robb's videos, I am getting the hang of it. I don't think there is a whole lot written about the process, so hopefully this will be a start. I see a couple of the captions are on the wrong pictures, but close enough that you should be able to follow along. Bert, you will always lose some of the carving detail when you stretch and emboss. After the stretching is done and the cavity filled with putty and dried, you have to go back and do all the detail work again. Just wet the leather and go at it. The putty is still workable even when it's dry. If you want more shape, get agressive with pear shaders and such. But it is also firm enough that you can tool detail back in. Tooling on it once it's filled with putty is different than when it's flat, but you can do it. A lot of the detail can be just worked back in with a modeling tool too. If you have any questions, I'll try and answer them. Maybe later on this year I can come down to Rapid and do a demo or class on something like this if you want (with less feathers though or it will take a week)

I decided to put the tutorial on my photo site until it finds it's way here to the forum. You can see the step by step process of how I made this picture for now. If you click on a picture, the caption with a description of what is being done should show up. It's not the most convenient way to see it, but it should work until something better gets put up. ****Here is the link**** http://leatherworker.net/bufffeathers/index.htm Clay, why don't you make a separate post for this so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle?

Froghunter, This pattern intimidated me a little too but I decided to do it anyway (since I was the one that picked it). By doing things we aren't real comfortable with, we learn and grow. This pattern wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. I hope you will give it a try and if you have any problems with it, just ask for help. It's been fun seeing all the stuff you have been doing and I think you will do just fine on this pattern too. It looks like I'll be doing it again, my daughter loved how the zebra turned out so we decided to do the same pattern on a CD case. Clay

I just got this message from Jim . Any of you that are close to this area wont want to miss this. I am in Ft. Lauderdale this week attending the National After School Association Conference, trying to get leatherwork back into the school system through this avenue. My involvement at this convention will leave my Saturday morning free to do a workshop or demo at the Ft. Lauderdale Tandy Leather store. I know it's late notice, but you may have members in this area that would like to stop in if they knew I was there. Could you get a quick note out to members? I'll be at the store from opening until noon on Saturday the 15th and then I'll have to run and catch my plane. Thanks, Jim Linnell

Brent, I was surprised that the two patterns fit together that well, and that they looked good together. Seems like a strange combination. Guess some of the twisted minds here on the forum are rubbing off on me. I dont normally like very bright colors but on this I kinda do. Thanks for the comments. Tina, I am glad you like how this turned out because I was thinking of giving it away as a "thank you" to the person that provided the patterns for the first two figure carving challenges. I wonder if she'd PM me with an address?

Brent, As with all the challenge patterns, you are free to make any changes you like to the pattern to make them more your own. Just about everyone changes a thing or two and I think that's great. It gives us all ideas. Sheridan isn't my thing either, but I decided to leave the pattern the way it was. To un-sheridanise it, I think you would just open the pattern up a bit and maybe make the leaves a little wider. We'll be waiting to see what you do either way.

Ok, here's mine. As I mentioned in the other challenge, I decided to put both patterns together and make a project out of it so it's now a photo album. The coloring is a little brighter than what I am used to but what else can you do with a zebra? I used acrylic on both the zebra and the floral pattern. Overall, I was pretty happy with it.

Hey Mike, That was fast and looks really nice, especially for your first colored project. I am still working on mine, hope to finish the coloring today. Thanks for playing along and getting us all started. Clay

official ending date is the last day of March, but anyone is welcome to do the patterns anytime, even after the month is over.

I decided to try putting both the floral and figure challenge patterns together and see how they would fit. I thought they looked ok, so I am going to try them on a small photo album (actual carving area, a little less than 5X7) I tried to scan my carving but it didn't turn out very well. I'll try and take a picture of it later and post it. But anyway, here is a pattern of them both together. Ok, here's my attempt at carving this. I am not really happy with it, I HATE carving really small stuff and for me, this (at least the floral part) qualifies as small. I still have some cleaning up to do, and everyone here says I have to color it but I am not looking forward to that.

Jim, That is some really nice carving! The changes you made to the pattern are also really nice. Not sure what else you can say about that. Clay

quote name='SCOUTER' date='Mar 2 2008, 01:54 AM' post='33496'] Ok Clay this is embarrassing but how do I resize this pattern down to like 50% or 75%... I printed it out and it would not fit on a normal page. Thanks! See if either of these help

Drac, Those are getting cooler with every one you do!

Here is another pattern sent to me by Tina. It is actually a zebra, but the stripes aren't on the pattern. It looks kind of challenging, but I hope some people will give it a try (I intend to) Next month's pattern will be simpler, I promise.

There are no winners. This is just for fun. I'll try and get a figure carving pattern up soon.

Participation in the February carving challenges was really better than I had expected, so we're going to try it again. This month's pattern is a Sheridan style corner pattern from Clay Miller. This pattern can be used on any project of your choice, or just on as a practice piece. As with last month, you can carve this however you like, modify the pattern to suit your needs or style. I hope that some of you will give it a try and share your pictures with us.

Glad you found us and shared the pictures of your work. I REALLY like that eagle! Clay

Hi Pete, I really like some of the elements you are putting into your designs. I hope you keep working at this and keep sharing what you come up with. I am hoping that we can get something started here on pattern drawing in the near future. There seems to be growing interest in it, and we have a few members that are good at it and might be willing to help the rest of us out.