I had a visitor

[ClayB]

My friend Dave Peterson stopped by today for a visit. For those of you that don't know Dave, he's married to Robb Barr's sister Cheryl. I met Dave several years ago in Sheridan and when we started talking, we realized that we lived fairly close together (by North Dakota standards anyway). Dave comes out to my side of the state a few times a year to hunt and when he does, he usually stops in to talk about leather projects he's working on. Dave got interested in carving leather after Robb passed away, so he never got to learn from the master, so when he gets stuck on something, he has to settle for me. He always brings along lots of goodies to show, and usually leaves me a gift or two. This time was no exception.

One this trip, Dave was hoping I could give him some pointers on carving shrubbery. (yes Crystal, I googled Monte Python and found a You Tube video of the the show clip). He won a carving by Silva Fox a few years ago at the IFoLG show in Texas and brought that along to show me an example of what he wanted to try. I have seen pictures of this carving before, but this is the first time I had seen it in person. I was really surprised at how SMALL the carving is. It only measures about 5 inches high by 13 inches wide. The detail on something that small is pretty amazing. I guess maybe that's why Silva has always been one of my favorite leather artists. Now I'm supposed to teach him how she did this???? Well, I tried, and he was fairly happy with my attempt. We also went over some techniques to do some hair, eyes and grass.

Dave continues to improve his carving techniques every time I see him. He brought several of the carvings that he's currently working on with him to show me. It's always fun to see what he's working on, and some of the new ideas he comes up with. He's always changing patterns and doing things a little bit different and comes up with some really interesting ideas.

When Dave left for the evening, he asked if he could leave most of his stuff here since he plans on coming back again tomorrow. Um....... sure. I've got a box full of Robb Barr's black tools to play with, a couple really cool swivel knives, and a Bob Beard mallet that you can't get anymore. It's like Christmas came early, even if it's only for an evening. The weather here seems to want to act like Christmas so it works for me! Anyone want to come over and play?

Here's a few pictures. The first three are of Silva's carving. The next two are some of Dave's work, and the last two are of a brief case that is some of Robb's early work.

[CitizenKate]

Golden. Thanks for showing us what you got.

Kate

[leatheroo]

lucky you!!!

[Crystal]

Clay- that wasn't the kind of shrubbery I was expecting! I hope the visit was a good time, I am enjoying seeing the items and the tools. (You did give the tools back, right?)

I just gotta ask- is that a dragon in that one piece? Or do I really need to start wearing my glasses?

Crystal

[JohnBarton]

Clay- that wasn't the kind of shrubbery I was expecting! I hope the visit was a good time, I am enjoying seeing the items and the tools. (You did give the tools back, right?)

I just gotta ask- is that a dragon in that one piece? Or do I really need to start wearing my glasses?

Crystal

It's a dragon. One of the many things that make Silva Fox such an astounding artist. The other amazing thing to me is the way the flight path of the dragon is depicted - she left the leather untooled to allow the dragon's wake to cut through the sky, just amazing foresight and detail.

Thanks Clay, all of these pictures are just fantastic and inspirational. Amazing work all the way around and your friend is lucky to own that Fox. I don't collect much but she is on my list of "must have something by someday".

John

[JohnBarton]

Clay- that wasn't the kind of shrubbery I was expecting! I hope the visit was a good time, I am enjoying seeing the items and the tools. (You did give the tools back, right?)

I just gotta ask- is that a dragon in that one piece? Or do I really need to start wearing my glasses?

Crystal

It's a dragon. One of the many things that make Silva Fox such an astounding artist. The other amazing thing to me is the way the flight path of the dragon is depicted - she left the leather untooled to allow the dragon's wake to cut through the sky, just amazing foresight and detail.

Thanks Clay, all of these pictures are just fantastic and inspirational. Amazing work all the way around and your friend is lucky to own that Fox. I don't collect much but she is on my list of "must have something by someday".

John

[TTcustom]

Wow, just ohmygoshWOW!

I don't think I will ever get there but at least I know it can be done.

[ClayB]

I did give the tools back, much as I would have loved to keep them. I know that they'll be back here in the future whenever Dave comes back to visit.

And John is right, it is a dragon. Here's a little more info on that picture from Silva

The picture from the Texas raffle was a challenge issued me many years ago by Roz Kohn (the dragon lady) and a couple of others. There's a lot of detail in a particularly small scene. The title is "Stagecoach Robbery" and when you do see it you'll notice a little dragon high tailing it out of the stagecoach to get away from the shooting action. That was not a part of the original challenge pattern. That's my version of Roz on the run.:-) I did beat the challenge, by the way.

There really is a lot of detail in this small picture. One thing I don't think you can probably see from the pictures (I didn't even realize it in person for quite a while) is that the reins on all the small horses and the team are actually added on. It looks like they are possibly made from the scrap you get when you edge a strap, painted and attached to the picture. If you've never been to Silva's site, you should check it out. She's an amazing artist. If you look under the gallery, the North Dakota Mulie picture is one that my wife had Silva make for me and it's pretty special to me.

This doesn't look like much in the picture, but it's the scrap of leather we were playing on.

[Double U Leather]

Holy SheepDip Batman.......... that is simply amazing!!! How was the elk done with his horns off the back like that?

[ClayB]

The elk is done in what is called "extreme embossing". The leather is stretched from the backside and filled with putty. There are several different techniques used in this style of carving and cutting the antler free from the background is one of those techniques. After the antler is cut and beveled, it is then cut loose from the background with a scalpel or a pro petal tool. The leather is just sliced part way through, the antler is then loose and the scar underneath can be tooled with a background tool to hide it. Once the antler is loose, a piece of thin wire was glued to the backside to help stiffen it up. Then a layer of putty (leather dust mixed with rubber cement) was applied to it. This putty can be shaped to give the antler a fairly realistic looking shape. On the second elk picture, Dave decided to just make the near side antler out of a seperate piece of leather. He then shaped it in a similar manner and is going to attach it by gluing the base of the antler to the elk's head, and gluing the tips to the background leather. Hope this gives you some idea of how it was done.