Convert colorful photo to leather

[Regis]

We see a lot of western floral carving but, I haven't seen a lot of other except roses ( plus oak leaves & pine trees). I have a number of florials that I would like to tool but, where do you draw the line in tooling to show the subject in leather and keep from just painting a picture on leather? I don't know if I'm even explaining this correct. Maybe it's that I want the dye & color to accent the tooling and not have the tooling accent the painting.

Here are 2 agapantha photo's that I just shot in my back yard. I think they would be great on wallet or purse for my daughter. I don't know if I should remove or reduce background or tool the foreground only or, or? Or, is this just a really poor subject to do "in" leather?

The below has bee in blossum on left.

Appreciate any help and tips.

Regis

[leatheroo]

Here's my effort on the bottom flower using photoshop. I'm not very good at photoshop but had a play with your photo.

[Regis]

Thanks Roo. I lke the way you broke that out. You took it to something I could actually carve. I'm a Corel user and could do similar. With what you did, I can see how to lay that out. Leaving out the background really looks like it will make the flower pop. And, it simplifiies the color isue for me.

Thanks,

Regis

Here's my effort on the bottom flower using photoshop. I'm not very good at photoshop but had a play with your photo.

[TwinOaks]

One thing I thought about for coloring flowers without obscuring the carving is to 'under color' them- basically dilute your color to be more like a wash. Then apply minimally, sorta fading into the flowers at the stem, developing the intensity of the color up to the flower.

That's my take on it anyway.

Ought to be pretty easy to do with an airbrush...

Edited May 19, 2008 by TwinOaks

[Timd]

Hidecrafters has 2 videos "Fun with flowers" by Shirley Peterson that are pretty informative.