Silhouette Carved Belt

[Handstitched]

This is my latest creation, a ' silhouette carved' belt. I haven't done silhouette carving in a quite a long time. The individual pieces are cut-outs, off-cuts from other  stuff I make, ...I used up scraps  , with a 25mm belt through the centre. This type of carving sure makes you go cross-eyed, fiddly as    Good light and a steady hand helps. Apart from the black dye, I used a thinned out  mix of 'camel & yellow' to get all pieces to match, although some pieces could have done with another coat . I modified a brush  with only a few bristles on it for the black  ...and two pairs of glasses .  The idea was inspired by Al Stohlman  in the ' Belts Galore' book, and the designs came from his book ' Inverted Carving' . Not a bad effort considering I haven't done silhouette carving in quite a while.

Theres a few other pieces I did some years earlier , including my camera case on the right, showing the back. 

HS

Edited June 9, 2023 by Handstitched

[Fraulein]

Very nicely done! Beautiful work! Never heard of silhouette carving before but I'm very intrigued. Definitely gonna have to give it a go for myself

[fredk]

Interesting technique. Nicely carried out

Carry on

[chuck123wapati]

those are awesome my friend tell me your technique!  Are they burned in or stamped?

[Gezzer]

Nicely done !!!!!

I did a little inverted a while back and it gives a different look for sure .

[Handstitched]

8 hours ago, chuck123wapati said:

those are awesome my friend tell me your technique!  Are they burned in or stamped?

All carved in using angled carving blades  and the tip of a filigree blade.  Every leather worker may do it different, but  I start with tracing the designs, same as other carving, but for the small  size of the designs,  I start bevelling around the inside of the lines instead of outside using the smallest beveller I have ,  followed by the background tools and a modeling tool for the more fiddly bits including ropes, reins etc. 

The tools used are in the pic, although not very clear. I used an angled carving blade as well as a  fine filigree blade ( not in pic) . A 'B 936' beveller, an A98 backgrounder ( a really old one) , A 104 for larger areas, a modified ground down stamping tool, and an  F902 in some areas like mane, tail etc. a modeling tool ( no idea of the number) , a modified trimmed brush with only a few bristles on it  and slightly larger one for larger areas...and an extra pair of specs   &  water based black dye. 

For  those that wish to try this, one word  : patience , don't rush it , and good light. 

Thank you all  

HS

[PastorBob]

Very sharp!

[Bert03241]

pretty cool