ClayB

There are different methods to measure horses backs. I recently got Dennis Lane's card system and it really helped me to understand a lot of the things I had read that went way over my head. If you check out the instruction page on his website, it might give you some idea of what you are looking for.

Hey Dave, You did pretty good. I've got a drawer full of things I "tried" to color that didn't turn out well at all. You can still lighten up your bear if you are brave enough to try. Take a lighter shade of brown or tan or even yellow or off white acrylic paint and dry brush over the hair very lightly. It'll give it highlights and lighten up the dark color. It's something you'll want to practice with a bit. You want to brush almost all the paint out of your brush before you take it to the bear. I just learned that using a stiff(er) brush helps with this too. The brushes that were recommended to me were hog bristle and I was really surprised at what a difference it made.

I like it Caroline. It seems like every time you take a break, you come back even better than before. It's a neat idea and you really pulled off the marble look!

Hey Dave, You've done well on your bear and the tracks are great! Coloring intimidates me too, but a friend recently told me "chickens can't paint". So I keep working at it. You'll get there too. Welcome to the forum, and thank for sharing.

Thanks Kathy! The reason you think I paint okay is cuz you don't get to see the stuff that doesn't turn out As for hairing on leather dust, Jan says it makes a big difference what kind of rubber cement you use when making putty. He has a few cans of the old Tandy rubber cement left from years ago and that's the only stuff he uses for the putty mix that goes on the front of a project. I've also found that it makes a difference when you try to cut hair on putty. Too wet, it drags the putty around. Too dry, it's hard to cut. But if you are really careful, you can cut and lift hair with a SHARP scalepl blade. Blades dont stay sharp very long when cutting into the rubber cement either. Another thing I found out in this class is there is a BIG difference in the rubber cement Barge makes for Tandy and the rubber cement they make with the Barge label on the can. The Barge labeled Barge still works like rubber cement. One other thing I learned in the class is you have to be really careful with hair cut on putty as when you put the Drakes X-1 on it as a sealer, the hair can roll up and look like little balls instead of hair. Someday when we get together, I show you how to cut hair on putty. If I can do it, I know you can too. It's funny what you said about putting something in the bears mouth. Alice told Jan he should stick one of his embossed trout in his bear's mouth. I think that might look really neat. Or you could just stick a booger in his nose for Freak to play with

Silva has pictures of both dragonflies and humming birds on her website. You can see them here.

The first time I ever met George was the first time I went to the Sheridan show. I was in the Holiday Inn drinking establishment with Peter and Cheryl and some of the other Australians when George came in a sat with us. There was some really bad karaoke going on. George was telling us about one of his trips to Japan and how after a little sake he decided to do karaoke himself. We couldn't talk him into doing it in Sheridan that year, but I think that would be better than most of the entertainment I've ever seen at the banquets in Sheridan.

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. Painting this was pretty scary, but Jan made it fairly easy. There were several things about painting that finally "clicked" for me. I'm hoping to get started on another one of these bears in the near future to reinforce what I learned. It'll be nice to be able to take my time on the next one and concentrate on each step. What we did in this class condensed what Jan usually does in 2-3 months into 2 weeks. We really pushed things to get done in that amount of time. I've also got a list of things to do differently on the next one. Usually when I get a project like this finished, a lot of things make sense that didn't really when I was doing them. One thing Jan said about these bears is that most women don't like the mouth open very far. He said he's lost several sales because they don't want something that scary looking hanging on their wall. I felt like if I was going to put that much detail in the mouth, I wanted people to be able to see it. The cool thing is that you can still open or close the mouth slightly if you want to. My son Jake found a saying today that I think I'm going to use for the title of my bear picture. "You can run, but you'll just die tired!"

I spent the last couple weeks in Billings, MT with Jan Schoonover. He graciously agreed to show me how he created the grizzly bear picture that took best of show at the very first World Leather Debut in Sheridan Wy a few years ago. He shared with me a lot of the techniques that he has developed over the years for extreme embossing that he doesn't teach in his normal classes. It was an amazing two weeks and I was thrilled with how my bear turned out (Jan seemed to be too) If any of you are interested in this type of carving and are ever going to be in the Billings area, you should give Jan a call. He said that he'd like to do more one on one classes where he can devote all his time to teaching one person. He's also teaching a couple different classes in Sheridan in May, and one in Pittsburgh in June. Here's some pictures of my bear.

I like that quite a bit. I'd suggest that on the leaves where you've added a turnback, that you don't connect the line back to the leaf at the bottom. I think if you carve it that way, it'll look like something laying on top of the leaf. If it's not attached, it will give the appearance of being folded over which I think is what you are going for. Not sure I've seen a leaf of that type with a turn back before but I like it.

I like 'em both Troy. You're doing some really nice stuff. And I agree, those leaves are cool.

Thanks everybody. I feel pretty lucky to be taking this class, and for a lot of the other classes I've had the opportunity to take. I think we're all pretty lucky in this craft where the true masters are willing to share what they've worked so hard to learn with the rest of us. Joet, Robb's usually got his figures out about an inch and a half. This grizzly bear that Jan is teaching me came about when Robb challenged Jan to a friendly contest to see how far they could take a bear out. When Jan took his grizzly to an IFOLG show and Robb saw it, he conceded. I've had the chance to see both Robb's and Jan's bears in person and they are both real works of art.

I've been taking a one on one class with Jan Schoonover since the beginning of last week. Today we finished up the carving, embossing and hairing of the project. Tomorrow we start applying the stiffener to the hair and then coloring it. We are planning on finishing up this weekend. It's been a real eye opener for me. I've always admired Jan's big bear and hoped to get to try it sometime. Even though I've taken several classes with him in the past, I had no idea what all was involved in creating this one. Jan took things to a whole new level when he figured out how to do this. It took him three years of experimenting to get it how he wanted it and he developed several new techniques along the way that he doesn't share in his regular classes. So anyway, here's what my bear looks like after 70 hours of work. The tip of the nose is a little over 4 1/2 inches from the background. The one Jan is working on ended up right at 5 inches.

You are not going to ruin your project by getting it too wet with your initial wetting. Dunking your leather in water is probably going to make it wetter than using a sponge. I don't think there is anything wrong with either method but the wetter it is, the longer you are going to have to wait before you can start to tool. By dunking it, there's probably a better chance that the moisture is going to get all the way to the center of the leather, especially on heavier leather. Putting it in a plastic bag, or under glass is going to help the moisture even out throughout the leather too. However you wet it, you have to wait until the leather starts to return to it's original color before you can start carving on it. Proper moisture content is going to vary with the leather you are using. It's something you just have to play with to see what works best. Usually when I have to quit working on a project I'll add a little moisture to the back before I place it in a bag and put it in the refrigerator. Then when you take it back out, it should be pretty close to ready to go again. I also add water to the back if it starts to dry out when I'm working on it if the leather isn't backed with something to keep it from stretching. If the leather is cemented to cardboard or has tape on the back (or another method to keep it from stretching) you can add a little water to the front with a damp sponge. I just refered to Paul Burnett's free lessons on his Painting Cow website in another post. There is a lot of good information in them. He has one lesson that deals with Leather Humiditythat you should check out.

Hi John and welcome to Leatherworker. Paul Burnett has a series of free lessons on his Painting Cow website. You owe it to yourself to sign up for them as Paul is one of the best when it comes to leather artists and he shares a lot of his knowledge for free. If you sign up for the lessons, he'll email you when new stuff becomes available. Ok, enough of the advertisement for Paul. But, in a couple of these lessons he talks about stops. Here's a link to one of them. If you go part way down the page to the section on "special bevelers" you will see how Paul defines stops. He considers them a special beveler used to bevel a tight turn. If you look at the sample carving at the bottom of the page, his description should make some sense to you. I think there are other times when the tool is used to "stop" a line.

You can extend the life of the razor blade in your skiver by taking it out and stropping it. You have to be pretty careful how you hold the blade while doing this so you don't cut yourself. When I was told about stropping the blade, I found out that you could get a LOT more life out of the blade.

Jan's classes are back on now too. He's doing one on an embossed dog, boxer I think. He's also doing one on different hairing techniques and coloring.

I wont be there, but I am hoping to send something from Afar.

To help make the background smoother, you might try a checkered figure carving matting tool. It's difficult to get real even background over a large area with a small tool. It's not impossible to get even background with a small tool but it'll take some practice. Your leather is going to have to be fairly dry and you might have to go over it several times. With practice, you'll learn to hit the tool with even pressure and that will also help make it smoother. On beveling figures like your horse, you might want to not bevel so deep. If you look where the mane meets the neck, you've matted the neck down pretty far. If you'd have beveled a lot lighter, it wouldn't make the mane stand out so much. A lot of beveling on figures can be done with just a modeling tool. Same with the muscles on the face. The modeling tool can give you contour without sharp lines. Or bevel lightly and then use the modeling tool to smooth out and blend in the lines. You've got the basics down, now you just need to work on the "finesse".

Hi Paul, You certainly lived up to your inspiration in these!!!