floral fender

[Alan Bell]

Here's my first attempt at a fully tooled saddle. This is just the first fender. I've also already done underneath the gullet and the rig plates.

Let me know what you think. I already am critiquing myself and my use of positive and negative space and background. I did manage to get the flow going up and the flowers growing out of the vine. It is all my own design and flowers and I stole some of the leaves from my favorite Thai restaurant in Orlando FL! They have a lot exquisite wood carving and it is very inspiring besides the food is great! Anyway back to the fender. I am really trying hard to get this down and am appreciative of anything anyone has to offer!!

Vaya Con Dios, Alan Bell

[rickybobby]

Here's my first attempt at a fully tooled saddle. This is just the first fender. I've also already done underneath the gullet and the rig plates.

Let me know what you think. I already am critiquing myself and my use of positive and negative space and background. I did manage to get the flow going up and the flowers growing out of the vine. It is all my own design and flowers and I stole some of the leaves from my favorite Thai restaurant in Orlando FL! They have a lot exquisite wood carving and it is very inspiring besides the food is great! Anyway back to the fender. I am really trying hard to get this down and am appreciative of anything anyone has to offer!!

Vaya Con Dios, Alan Bell

Alan,

nice job! very nice pattern! I can hardly wait to see the whole saddle!

Rick J.

[hidepounder]

Here's my first attempt at a fully tooled saddle. This is just the first fender. I've also already done underneath the gullet and the rig plates.

Let me know what you think. I already am critiquing myself and my use of positive and negative space and background. I did manage to get the flow going up and the flowers growing out of the vine. It is all my own design and flowers and I stole some of the leaves from my favorite Thai restaurant in Orlando FL! They have a lot exquisite wood carving and it is very inspiring besides the food is great! Anyway back to the fender. I am really trying hard to get this down and am appreciative of anything anyone has to offer!!

Vaya Con Dios, Alan Bell

Alan,

That's a big tooling project to jump into! I hope this will help! I would like to see more petals coming off your vines and I would like them to extend farther into the pattern. You created a border and I think the petals and the other elements need to extend to it. Increasing the number of petals will help to fill in the background area and make the design more balanced. I would also like to see the cuts more elongated and tapered. There is nothing wrong with having several petals and stem elements lapping each other...they need to gradually taper into the main vine. There is enough room to add a flower at the top of the fender and another element could be added at the bottom at the stirrup leather. Feel pretty bruised!!! Please don't, it's a great first run at full tooliing. You were successfull in laying the pattern out and creating a flow from one flower to the other! In addition you incorporated other elements such as leaves and successfully branched them out of the main vine. The size of your flower is good and you maintained the circle which surrounds the flower! Good job!

I'm going to go check out my local Thai restaurant...what could be be better than eating good food while developing tooling patterns!

Bob

Edited February 18, 2009 by hidepounder

[Alan Bell]

Bob, Thanks for the input!! I guess you are seeing what I am seeing too. My problem is I only seem to see it AFTER I've put the design to leather. i draw them out on paper and they seem to look OK then I put then the pattern to leather and once I've completed the tooling is when it starts to look uneven or un balanced or what ever. Since I've only done the stirrup fender maybe I'll chalk this one up as practice, go back to the original drawing and add in the elements you mention. Then I'll post the drawing BEFORE I put it to leather for critique!

Vaya con Dios, Alan Bell

[greg gomersall]

Alan once you have your drawing done if you are curious as to how it will look try using a pencil to shade all your background areas in on the drawing. This will allow you to better see what you have drawn and how much background you have etc. Greg

[gtwister09]

Alan,

Not sure how you lay out your pattern but maybe you might try lightly shading the background areas to show you the positive/negative spaces. That was something that was shown to me many years ago to help with initial designs on paper. I was and I am still amazed that someone can use only tap-offs and then create a pattern with all the connections, fills and cross-overs from scratch.

Keep up the work, study other peoples work and it will get easier.

Regards,

Ben

[Alan Bell]

Thanks Gregg and Ben I guess genius minds think a like and somehow I never thought of that! (What does that tell you?) I had Jay Gore try and help me a little and he was telling me that "You'll find it MUCH easier to just do the tap offs and fill in the blank" and he does it with his swivel knife!! I watched him work and sat on my hands for a week, I was afraid to touch a piece of leather! I will still continue to practice doing it that way on some scrap leather but I find it pretty hard with a drawing on paper as you can tell. I know it will get easier and that is why I figured I might as well go ahead and try it. I can say I've seen far worse than mine being sold in saddle shops by folks that seem to not mine fleecing the public! (Maybe they don't know any better). I figured that with all the folks on this board to help me I might actually turn out a half way decent tooled saddle IF I don't run out of hides!!!! Thanks and remember...........We're building this saddle TOGETHER. Ain't it a BEAUTIFUL word. Say it again with me.....TOGETHER!!!

VAYA CON DIOS MI AMIGOS, ALAN BELL

[greg gomersall]

Alan you can also take the pattern after you have drawn it and hold it up to a mirror. Looking at a reverse image of a pattern in the mirror can help the eye pick up details you missed looking at it from the first side. Greg

[Cowboy Crafts Online]

Alan,

Do you get leather crafters, if so go back 2 months and look at the article by Don Butler. I found it a really good article. Can not wait till he does a follow up.

Ash

[Alan Bell]

I don't get Leather Crafters right now. But I'll try and find someone who does and see if I can get a copy of the article.

Thanks!

Vaya Con Dios, Alan Bell

[hidepounder]

Hi Alan,

Jay is right, it is easier to use flower tap offs and fill in the blanks..........after you've had years and years of experience tooling!!!! I don't think it's the way to learn to draw. When you're starting out I think you should draw on paper or acetate and work on the pattern until you're satisfied. Like Greg and Ben, I also shade in the background whenever I draw a pattern.

One of the things I find helpful is to make circles on file folders, cut them out and lay them out on your pattern. The circle should reperesent that which surrounds your flower, so you will want to make several of them. I like to draw a flower on the circle cutout just to help visualize the pattern. Orient the flower in the opposite direction on the opposite side of the cutout. Ounce you have several of these circles cut out, you can spread them around within the outline of your pattern. It shows you immediately where you will have odd shapes to fill in, whether or not a flower element will fit or not, get everything evenly spaced, define the flow of the pattern, identify areas to place leaves/acnathas/swirls, etc., etc. When it looks pretty good, trace round the cardboard circles, mark the direction of flow and then fill it all in. Draw your flowers in the center of your circles and draw in the vines and petals based on the circles you drew! This is probably an archaeic method but it works.

In my opinion, one of the most helpful books a tooler can own is Sheridan Style Carving by Bob Likewise. In that book Bill Gardner explains drawing patterns and there's lots of photo's in the tutorial and a lot of pictures of work by several master toolers. He explains how to space elements out when drawing and how to keep a continuous flow. The fundamentals apply to all tooling, not just Sheridan style work. Good stuff!

I'll bet it was fun watching Jay. It's amazing what toolers like he can do. Did he push his swivel knife instead of turning the piece around? That's always amazing to watch! Anyway, I hope this is helpful.

Bob

Edited February 20, 2009 by hidepounder

[Alan Bell]

Thanks for the help Bob, I do have Likewise book and I can see it in my mind but am having trouble translating it to paper or leather. And yes it was great to watch Jay and he does push the swivel a lot. He told me that when he started with Billy Cook for at least a year he just beveled the design in an assembly line and then he was the back grounder and so on until he had eventually done it all! That is years and years of experience right there!! I took a picture of the original drawing next to the tooled fender and I can see a few things; my flower template is bigger than my actual flower (I cut a cardboard template for the drawing and used a tap off for the leather), ;the second flower inside the vine should have the vine swirl all the way around it and should be growing off towards the upper left not towards the upper right.; my flowers shooting out should have more leaves or swirls maybe even going past the flower a bit to fill the spaces; my middle leaf should be curved the other way and not the same as the other two leaves. These things I see now and I guess I need to do as suggested and shade the back ground on the drawing and spend a little more time looking or REALLY looking at the drawing BEFORE committing to leather! Thank a million!!

Vaya Con Dios, Alan Bell

[mulefool]

I can't really add anything to what been said, but I just wanted to mention for some reason by the time I transfer my carving to the leather and finish it, the negative space always seems bigger, and I shade in the background on the paper to get a sense of that. I did want to say I think it's great you got some inspiration from the Thai restuarant. Sometimes we get stuck thinking the carving has to be a certain way, but there is so much inspiration out there from other sources. Now I'm hungry for some Phad Thai. chris

[flathat4life]

I can't really add anything to what been said, but I just wanted to mention for some reason by the time I transfer my carving to the leather and finish it, the negative space always seems bigger, and I shade in the background on the paper to get a sense of that. I did want to say I think it's great you got some inspiration from the Thai restuarant. Sometimes we get stuck thinking the carving has to be a certain way, but there is so much inspiration out there from other sources. Now I'm hungry for some Phad Thai. chris

Mulefoot,

I agree with you. If i recall theirs a short video clip on the web where somones doing a documentry on Dale Harwood. He said he liked going to the local gift shop and looking thrue thier Halmark cards to find flowers and leafs he thought looked realistic. Then for a couple quarters he had alot of ideas to put together and make somthing out of.

Jed