drawing floral patterns in the Sheridan style

[bdetteg]

I've been a lurker here for a few weeks, finally joined the board. I attended Tandy classes because I had a crave for some really nice chinks and figured I could produce them for considerably less than what I've seen available for sale. Not to disrespect very talented leatherworkers out there, but I do a lot of silverwork and bring that level of discpline and detail-orientation to my leatherwork, and I liked the idea of making my own stuff.

Now, of course, I'm hooked on leatherworking, especially tooling and stamping. I saw a post here somewhere by Dave Genedek talking about developing your own patterns. No one in the topic was interested in pursuing that line, but I sure am. While I admire the western floral carving I've seen, I'd like to develop my own style and not just copy commercially available pattern sheets. Dave mentioned a couple of reference works, but I haven't been able to locate his post again, but I'm also interested in what the rest of you have to say.

What sources do you recommend to help educate a new person in original pattern design for leather carving?

--Bdette

[Johanna]

Is this the thread you were looking for?

Johanna

[Randy Cornelius]

There are a couple sourses for drawing floral patterns in the Sheridan style. The one that is the best I feel and easiest to use is Chan Geers pattern drawing pack and CD. He goes through step by step on how to draw floral patterns. The pattern pack gives you several different sizes and styles of flowers, leaves and swerls.(mispelled that one!) I think you can still get it through Hide Crafters. If now PM me and I will give you Chans phone and you can call him direct.

As far as Porter or the other styles I have not seen anyone have even classes on drawing the patterns. They had a class at Ft. Worth on tooling the Texas style of floral but really did not get into how to draw.

I took a class at Sheridan last spring from Pete Gorell on wester floral drawing that was a good class also.

Randy

[Clay]

Bdette,

I have been trying to learn to draw my own patterns for a while and I recently found abook that you might be familiar with or at least maybe the author. It is Avanced Drawing of Scrolls by Ron Smith.

Ron Smith is a master engraver and has done some amazing work. It was writen for metal engravers, but it is very informative and crosses over to leatherwork easily.

I think that it has already helped me with my pattern drawing. A search on the internet should give you several options on purchasing it.

Clay M.

[Mike]

Another good reference book is 'Handbook of Ornament' by Franz Sales Meyer. First published in 1888 and now published by Dover books. It's subtitle is 'a grammar of art industrial and architectural designing in all its branches for practical as well as theoretical use'. While much is not useful for leather, much can be.

If you have access to any old 'Make It With Leather' magazines, Alan Dale articles are also very good on design instruction.

Mike

[robert]

Hello all....

I have never added attachments before, so i will see if this works. These 6 scans are from a class i did a few years ago on sheridan style drawing. hopefully they will help...

I had to shrink the 8.5 X 11 pages to get them small enough for the attachment limit (assuming they work), but hopefully you can see the drawing.

1. draw circles about 1" apart. on my drawing, the inside circle is the size of my flower. and the outside circle is to help me draw. The first circle (bottom left in this case) has a continuous vine - it is the only one that has no beginning or end. Mark your initial flow - again starting on the bottom left, i went clockwise.

Where your circles are closest, draw a line that make about a 45 degree intersection with both circles. If the first circle was clockwise, the second should go counterclockwise. Continue from circle to circle in this same manner.

Once you have your flow lines and you know how the vine pattern will run, mark where the flower bases will enter each circle - whereever the diagonal line between circles hits the circle, go about 3/4 the way around and thats where the flower base will be.

2. Draw in your flowers, using the flower bases that you drew in.

3. Shows how i start filling in. The top left is first, then top right, then lower right.

4. and 5. Show how i filled it in.

6. The completed pattern.

Sheridan style is the easiest to me to draw, because it is based on the mechanics above. however, once you can do this, doing patterns based on s curves is easier.

robert

Edited October 31, 2007 by robert

[Billsotx]

That looks pretty much like the Chan Greer instructions you'll get from Hidecrafters, at least the ones I bought.

[bdetteg]

All of you are fabulous. I'm going to hunt up Ron Smith's and Gyorgy Doczi's books, it sounds as if these will be good foundations. I think I'll invest in the Chan Geer video as well, that sounds like a good tool for a newcomer to use to get started on design work.

Joanna, you're the best, thanks for the link; it was a different thread than the one I was originally read, but I really enjoyed Dave Genadek talking about following God's lead in designing things, and staying true to your intent. I've experienced the magic that can happen when you visualize a piece of art, work though the technical challenges in reaching the intended design (along with the sometimes serendipitous changes required) to arrive at a finished product. Not everything I do works out well, but I strive to make it so.

Thanks again to you all.

--Bdette