ClayB

They are definately flashy and I bet that's how they are supposed to be. I too love the floral carving, you did an awesome job on that.

Caroline, It happens to me all the time too. Like Johanna said, you really need to have your own space where you can leave your stuff set up. When I was working off the table, most times I just didn't feel like taking the time to drag everything out for a couple hours. Having a place to go to that is always ready helps a lot, even if you only have a few minutes to work. Try and find a corner someplace that you can set up a table and leave your stuff there. I also have several projects in different stages of unfinishedness (hows that for a word?) I get stuck a lot and dont know what to do next on a project. Probably because I don't really think things through before I get started. When I get an idea, I just get a piece of leather and start carving. Funny thing is if you do that on a piece of scrap, it usually turns out pretty good and you wish you would have done it on a bigger piece of leather so you could have made something out of it. So now I usually start with a bigger piece of leather, and no idea what it will end up being. But usually when you have something unfinished sitting around that you see all the time, an idea will come along. Some things I really have to be in a mood to do, like painting. If I am not in the right mood, there's no point in starting. And whenever I get stuck, I just move on to something else. There are tons of different things you can make out of leather, as you can see here on this forum. Look through the pictures and see if there isn't something you haven't made before and give that a try. I am not sure if I have seen any carving on your work yet. If you do carve, you might give one of the monthly challenge patterns a try. On all the pictures you have shared with us, your work is really great. I know that you will do more great stuff when you get through this. Clay

That's one of my favorite rose patterns and you did a really nice job of it, carving and coloring.

I've never thought about trying to emboss a floral carving, so now you've given me something to think about. As for the dragon, it looks like you did a nice job on him. I have a couple questions. First, what weight leather did you use? And second, after embossing, did you fill the cavity on the back with anything? Al used leather plugs as a backing, more often these days people use leather dust mixed with rubber cement. If you fill in the cavity like that and even build the back up a little extra, once it dries awhile, you can then go back over your tooled areas and get even more stretch and definition. It's hard to tell how much depth you have from the picture, but just from the way the cuts look, I think you could re bevel them and get even more depth. The idea behind the monthly challenge was to get people to try something they normally might not do. I'm glad you did that and I hope you had fun with it. Your dragon head carving is really looking awesome too!

I used a brush and acrylic paints thinned down with water and the technique Silva Fox teaches in her Dazzling Color DVD. You color in all the shadow areas first with shades of purple, then just paint your main color over that. No mixing different shades, the shadows are already there. Then just add some highlights and it's done. I haven't used this technique a lot, but should because it really works and is pretty simple. Some people use an airbrush on leather and get great results. I need to figure out how to use mine sometime. I hope some of the rest of the people will explain there methods, coloring can be really frustrating.

Geez Freak, when I said no rules, I guess I wasnt' thinking about what you might do. You owe Tina more than an apology for killing the lion. But........ there's something really neat about what you did, in a sick sort of way. Kind of funny, I was looking through a book of drawings of bears yesterday and told my wife I'd like to carve the bear skull in there. She thought it was a little sick. Now I'm here admitting that I think like Freak!!!! Cant wait to see what you do to the poor flower pattern of Kathy's.

Ok, I picked on Kathy unmercifully yesterday in the chat room about a different fish she had carved, so I'll make up for it here. This is about the coolest fish I have ever seen, and I really mean that! We'll be expecting a LOT more pictures now that you have this figured out.

Hey Don, I think it turned out great! It's been fun watching you work on this and I bet it feels great to have it done. Do you get to try it out anytime soon?

Shirley, For not doing floral very often, that sure turned out pretty . I'm kinda glad the blonde thing got you to play. But I keep finding myself peeking out the window to make sure there isn't a black limo with Nevada plates sitting in my yard and some big mean bouncer type guy looking to rough me up :fish:

I was born in Crosby, ND. Heck, I don't even know where that is! Never been back as far as I know. My parents were both teaching somewhere near there at the time. We lived in Antelope, MT. for the first five years of my life. My dad was the principal and a teacher there. Then we moved to Missoula, MT where my dad finished studying for his masters in accounting. Once he got that, he got a job working for an oil company and we moved to Ponca City, OK where we lived for about 5 years. From there, we moved on to Oklahoma City, OK and were there for about 5 years. Then we moved again to Salt Lake City, Utah where I stayed until I graduated high school. The rest of my family still lives in Salt Lake. Me, about a half hour after graduation, I got in my 1952 Ford pickup and headed back to ND. I had been spending my summers on my grandparents ranch in the ND badlands since I was 10. That's where I always wanted to live and still do. I ran a cow/calf operation on the ranch until about 6 years ago when I sold off the cows and leased out the ranch. I really liked working with cattle and being my own boss, but trying to hold down an almost full time job and running the ranch was taking a toll on me and my family. For the past few year I have been pouring cement and climbing around on roofs, putting up buildings, etc. I don't enjoy all that much, but it pays the bills and gives me time to carve on leather so I'll do it until something better comes along. We've still got 3 horses, a dog, way too many cats and some of the prettiest scenery in the world!

I have been using mostly Herman Oak, and used a little Wickett and Craig and both are really nice leather. The stuff you get in Tandy kits isn't all that fun to work with but.... Tandy did start selling some new leather that is supposed to be like the old Live Oak brand they made many years ago. I got a side of it, and just carved a small piece of it so far, but it seems to me it's pretty nice stuff. It's probably comparable in price to HO or W&C (if bought through dealers) but for some people, it might be a good option if they have a Tandy locally. I haven't seen the stuff advertised, but I called Clay Miller in Rapid City and asked for "the good stuff" and he sent it to me.

When doing embossed leather pictures (mostly figure carving) we use putty made from mixing leather dust (ground up leather) with either rubber cement or contact cement. Sometimes it is used to sculpt on the front of a carving and when painted by certain people, you cant really tell where the leather ends and the putty begins. I am not sure, but maybe you could mix dye in with the dust to match the color of the saddle before adding the cement. It wouldn't add any strength to a cut or scratch, but if all you want is cosmetic, I think it would probably work. You would just apply cement to the gouge, then when tacky, fill in with the putty. Once it starts to dry a little, you can work the putty smooth with a modeling tool or spoon or anything with a smooth surface. Licking the spoon keeps the cement from sticking to it (I know thats's kinda gross, but it seems like saliva is what works the best)

It's pretty neat that we are getting people from around the world playing with this. Thanks Gesa for showing us you your flower. Seems like it's been awhile since I have seen anything from you. The lion you did in the other challenge turned out really nice too. Tracy, the rule here is pretty much anything goes. Show your own style. So changing the pattern however you like is just fine, and even encouraged. Thanks for playing along and sharing your project.

Hi Sylve, Welcome to Leatherworker.net. I bet your english is a lot better than most of our french. I hope it's not too hard for you to follow the conversations here. We have lots of members from around the world, and that variety keeps things fun. We'd all love to see pictures of any projects you do. Clay

I am not sure if it would work or not. I did a project once that I sprayed a sealer on, then decided I could have done a better job of cleaning up the beveling marks on with a modeler. I wet a small area of the project, and after awhile, the water started soaking in, so I went ahead and wet the whole thing. It took some time, but the leather did take the water, and I did the modeling and it worked pretty good. Then when it dried, it was a blotchy mess. It looked awful. I decided maybe I could dye the background to hide the blotches, but spirit based dye wouldn't penetrate the finish, even though water did. When I finally thought the dye had to be dry, I went over it with antique and the dye smeared all over everything. I thought maybe I could remove everything with deglazer, but it didn't touch the spirit dye. The project has been laying around for a year now, and yesterday I thought maybe I could paint over the whole thing with acrylic paint, which looks like it might work, but not much detail of the carving will be left. The project is pretty much scrap at this point anyway so it works good to experiment on. If you wanted to just put hair on your lion with the hair blade, you might be able to do that right over the finsih. I think the hair would cut in. But what it would do when you tried to color or finish it, I have no idea. Same with removing the finish. It would probably work, but when you go to finish it again, I have no idea how the leather would accept it. If the project is something you are happy with now, I'd leave it alone and do another. If it's just practice, then experiment and see what happens. Clay

Well Shirley, Flattery, begging, and trickery weren't working. It was all I had left! I'm glad it worked. I figured yours would be just a little different and that was the whole idea behind this thing. By not doing any hairing at all, it gives the pattern a different look, clean and smooth, different than most of the others, but still looks good. I'll apologize right here in front of everyone for the blonde comment, but I am really glad you decided to play. Clay

Hi David, I love seeing the stuff you come up with when you do the tattoo style stuff. That's gonna be amazing! The production seats always look great too, but when you get to carving this kind of stuff, it's really something special. Clay

I think it was Randy Cornelius that posted that. Check here

There was some discussion on this here too

Ok, despite several of my latest attempts at painting not turning out so great, I keep trying. This one actually turned out better than I expected it would. I went back and used the techniques Silva Fox teaches in her Dazzling Color DVD and they really do work. I don't know why I dont do things that way more often. The first picture is with the shading done in shades of purple. And then the second is the finished painting.

Hey Marlon, If you look on page 317, paragraph B, subsection 1a, about half way down there is an * that takes you to a footnote. The directions on that footnote take you to page 735 and right there after the one that explains the politically correct way to harvest hair from a road kill squirell in California (in case you want to make your own paintbrush) is the rule about letting the teacher carve your name on a project in a class. It's right there in the really fine print!

Nice save Kate!!! Nobody would ever know it was almost a boo boo. Wanna fix some of the stuff in my boo boo bin???? It's getting fuller all the time.

Hi Russ, I am running out of things to say (is that clapping I hear in the background?? ) so I am glad you didn't ask for comments. You guys are all doing a great job with this pattern. Thanks for taking time to give it a try.