a plea to all of the talent we have here

[pete]

There is SO much talent here in the forum as SO little here at home!

I can spend all day tracing Chan Geer flowers and Pete Gorrell patterns(they are really good tips by the way) but I can't for the life of me put a drop of dye or paint on a project that doesn't end up in the garbage!!!!!!!

Would one of you talents PLEASE do a tutorial on how to paint or dye a simple flower or stem. All I end up with is purple and grey tones when I try to blend, say, a stem from dark green at the base to a light green/yellow tip.

I have all of the A.S. and Peter Main books but I would love to see someone post a 4 or 5 frame tutorial on(dry brush) blending a simple piece so it looks semi-realistic. I'm ready to give up coloring all together and am tired of wasting my work.

Thank you in advance

pete

[Tina]

Hi Pete,

I read your plea:-)

Now, I have not read any of Peters books but I am a big fan of his work so the "dry brush" make no sense to me with dyes. What I can do for now is maybe giving you some hints of how to shade from one color to the next in a nice fashion.

Now, you want to go from one green color up to yellow and that is the two colors to use, they meet in the middle and create a bunch of shades in between. I Always use a whole lot of reducer when I paint to delute them with the dyes (the acryllics is another story) I paint layer, ontop of layer and ad more layers to get to the color I'm happy with. I know that the dyes make the leather wet and darker, well I hope wife/girlfriend or so have a hair dryer...Very useful:-) I use the dryer between the layers (2 layers) to check where I am in the work.

I don't have the experience in the dyes getting grey, maybe it has something to do with different btand? The ones I'm using I can mix and blend as I want to (Angelius) I send in a photo with some of my practise pieces I made of the shading, in some places there is 3-4 different colors in there.

I hope this will help you a wee bit...The next time I'm doing something with the dyes I will make a photo tutorial about it. If you have any quetions and I can answer them, I will.

Have a nice evening//Tina

[ClayB]

Hi Pete,

This is something that I think is really hard to teach from a book. At least it was for me. I have all of Al's coloring books, and Peter's too. I just didn't get it until I took a class with Tony Laier a couple years ago. Seeing it done in person, it just all made sense. I tried to take pictures of some leaves I was coloring awhile ago, and it is really difficult. As Tina said, wet leather gets darker. It's really hard to tell what color you have until it dries. In Tony's class (and I think this was pretty close to what Peter teaches in his last book) he used 2 or 3 shades of each color. The first is a very diluted dye, the second diluted about 50/50 and the third full strength. If you are coloring a leaf green, by using 3 shades, you still get shadows and highlights, not just a flat looking green leaf. Tony started by coloring the whole leaf with the lightest shade. Then you go back with the second shade and color about half the leaf, leaving the edges light. Then finally, use the full strength in the very darkest shadow areas. If you want a multi color stem you would go about it the same way. Start out by dying the whole stem diluted yellow. You can go over it as many times as you want to darken the yellow, but you cant make it lighter if you get it too dark. Then add diluted green over the yellow, except towards the tip or edges you want to stay yellow. Again, you can go over this several times if you want darker shades, but work gradually until you know what will happen when the dye dries. Then finally, add full strength green into the shadow areas if you want them darker.

I have used the same technique with the eco flow dyes as withspirit dyes and had some really good results. If you are using acrylic paint instead of dyes, then things are different. I like acrylic paint, but again, I like to dilute it down quite a bit and work up your color by adding several layers.

I still mess up a lot of leather trying to dye or paint, but it's really fun when it works. I hope this helps a little. Next time I have something to color, I'll try and take pictures again, but I wont promise that it will be useful.

Clay

[pete]

Beautiful work, as usual! I mentioned dry brush because I have been triny to paint with......paint! Acrylic paints. I would love a piece on dyes as they seem easier to get true colors with. I thinks that I am finished with "paint" as I hate the look anyway.

I look forward to ANYTHING that you produce.

pea-aire"

[ClayB]

Pete,

Can you share a simple pattern that you like to carve, that you want to paint or dye? That way maybe a couple of us can try and color it in a way that will be useful to you.

There is a lot of difference between paint and dye, but either way, you want to use it pretty diluted and build up to the color you want. Either one can be overdone and ruin the look of your leather carving.

I painted a couple bears last weekend with acrylic paint, and was pretty happy with how they turned out. I think you can still tell that it is leather underneath. I think that's important when using acrylic.

[howardb]

Pete,

I've also taken Tony's class (immediately after taking the beginners' class at IFOLG last fall). The funny thing is, I did pretty good with it. Tony had tooled up oak leaves for everyone to "paint". He was showing off the new EcoFlo dyes (water based) and to me, it was like painting with watercolors. I actually took the class looking for hints on painting with watercolor and came away with not only those techniques, but with a firmed up desire to do leathercraft.

I have not dabbled in ruining leather with acrylic paint yet, but I do like dying leather. I intend to try artists watercolors some time soon to see if those work, because THOSE are a whole lot cheaper than Tandy's dyes. Don't get me wrong, I like the EcoFlo dyes and the way they work but if I can make watercolor paint work too, then whoopee!

Brent