Artistic Dying Method

[Chief Filipino]

HI everybody! I am working on a mask and I will be attaching a horn core to it. This core has been out in the elements for awhile and so it has some green tint to it. I want to try to give the mask a similar weathered/aged look to it. I want it to look like the mask itself has been sitting out in the elements along with the horn core. I want to give it a "spalted/mottled" look. I don't want the dye to be dark but just give it a tinting. Does anyone have suggestions about how to achieve this? I don't have an airbrush. The dye I have is a Tandy Leather Eco-Flo water based Forest Green. 

My thoughts:

1. Put some neatsfoot oil spots then dye the piece

2. Put dye in a spot and almost immediately wipe it off

Let me know what you think or if you have done it please let me know how you achieved it and include a picture please. 

Oh I also have some kelly green Cova Color also from Tandy, which is an acrylic paint.... I'm not sure if that would give me the mottled look I want though...

[Tob]

Try watering it down and use a spray bottle.  Set it to spray not stream.  I have thought about using a spray bottle because I have access to one.  For the time being, I can only afford free, so I have to improvise even the cheap things.  

Just another thought, if you get spots, let them sit for a moment or two then wipe.  As always, try on scrap first.  

[Boriqua]

were I playing with that I would want to first mark up the leather. You being from AZ I know there is gravel somewhere near by. I have had wonderful success (sorry no photos) taking a cased piece of leather and putting it face down on the ubiquitous gravel that surrounds my home. Then I take a board .. I have a piece of 12 inch by 2' board in the shed and I put it on the rough side and I stand on it and rock back and forth some. Lift board .. pull up leather and its got some cool very varied indentations.

Next ... water that green down about 3/4 water. I just did a bunch of that same green and it had more pigment than I thought it might. 1/2 will still be pretty dark and you cant come back from dark. I like Tob's idea of using a sprayer because it will come out all spit like and be less uniform than an airbrush.

Now ... I see a fair bit of warmth coming from that horn. In the simplest form adding some red to your green will dull out the green nicely and warm it some. You wont need much red to dull the green so after the initial light green was applied I would use the same sprayer to apply some of the red/ green and maybe 50% water and apply here and there. The dents in your leather will pick up more of the darker dull color and really kick it up some.

[Chief Filipino]

Thank you Tob and Boriqua! I will play around with some scrap first and see what I can come up with. Great ideas! 

[bikermutt07]

Chief, I would like to see pics of the finished product if you don't mind.

My first project had a pebble driveway board involved. I had forgotten about that. It looked pretty cool.

[cjartist]

Be careful adding red to green.  They are complimentary colors and combined will make black.

If you want a spattered look and the spray bottle doesn't do it, dip an old toothbrush in the dye and then pull your thumb over the bristles to create a splatter.  This would provide a more dispersed splatter than a spray bottle which I suspect may saturate it too much.

Love the gravel suggestion for texture.

Edited January 6, 2017 by cjartist
forgot something

[maxdaddy]

I vote for texturizing and antiquing. 

You may be able to use the horn itself to texturize the leather and you may find that this makes for a more consistent look than by graveling it. I can't tell for sure if the surface is aggressive enough to use to impress the texture but you could test it out on scrap.

I sometimes do this when attaching antler to a mug (as a handle) if I want the leather mug texture to be similar to the antler. Just wet the leather and after a few minutes of dry time, randomly roll the horn over the leather applying strong pressure and maintaining the 'grain' of the texture in a common direction. 

Look around and you'll find lots of things that you can use to texturize/age a piece of leather. The picture has some of the texturizers that I use.... Tree bark. Rock. Microphone windscreen. Meat tenderizer mallet. And my favorite texturize trick is the box of weird 'nuts' (one of them is circled) that I got from a guy, years ago, in North Carolina. I don't know what kind of tree they come from, but they lay a nice random/weathered texture down. I look like a kid rolling out play-doh snakes when I use the nuts on a piece... back and forth moving over the piece to get full coverage.

Antiquing will still be needed to get the color and tints to match and to bring out the texture. I would antique the horn with the same dye as the leather, but would test out the technique on a similar piece. 

Good luck and be sure to show us the finished product.

[Chief Filipino]

Here's the finished product! I greatly appreciate everyone's input! I haven't really done the textured leather before but I really like the way it comes out and plan on playing with it in the future! Thank you! 

Well almost finished. I am impatiently waiting for some copper aging solution to arrive so I can age the copper rivets to complete the look. 

[bikermutt07]

Very scary looking mask.

If you don't mind me saying so (and maybe the pictures aren't doing it justice, I don't know) it looks like it needs some brown or rust in there to age it up a little more.

I only say it as a suggestion, because you wanted it to look aged. It looks awesome, but not old.

[Boriqua]

Wow! That came out great. That is probably the best piece I have seen you post up here. Not saying the others weren't nice but this is another step in my opinion. Very nice!

 

Alex

[Chief Filipino]

On 1/8/2017 at 2:02 PM, bikermutt07 said:

Very scary looking mask.

If you don't mind me saying so (and maybe the pictures aren't doing it justice, I don't know) it looks like it needs some brown or rust in there to age it up a little more.

I only say it as a suggestion, because you wanted it to look aged. It looks awesome, but not old.

Thank you for the input! I am/was hoping the spots of the veg-tan color would come through and be enough. I guess I wanted it to look more moss covered than old... I will give the brown some consideration though sometimes I don't like the way something looks and I mess with it only to ruin the whole thing! sometimes knowing when to stop is a weakness of mine. 

[Chief Filipino]

On 1/8/2017 at 2:10 PM, Boriqua said:

Wow! That came out great. That is probably the best piece I have seen you post up here. Not saying the others weren't nice but this is another step in my opinion. Very nice!

 

Alex

Thank you! I am working on improving almost daily. I haven't posted much up here lately so it definitely makes it seem like a massive jump in skill level hahahaha. I need to add some more pictures to my gallery. If it wasn't for everyone like you on here giving the amazing tips, feed back, advice, etc I wouldn't be where I am at now. 

[Tob]

Yep I like it.  So how did you end up coloring it?  I am by no means nitpicking, just to me it looks like moss grew over it and stained it.  Well, let me say it this way, that is the story in my head when I look at it/interpretation.  Nature does some cool things if we slow down every now and then and pay attention.  And again to me, it looks like you captured a good touch of it.

[Chief Filipino]

 

13 minutes ago, Tob said:

Yep I like it.  So how did you end up coloring it?  I am by no means nitpicking, just to me it looks like moss grew over it and stained it.  Well, let me say it this way, that is the story in my head when I look at it/interpretation.  Nature does some cool things if we slow down every now and then and pay attention.  And again to me, it looks like you captured a good touch of it.

Yay! that was the look I was going for was that moss had grown over it. 

To color it I used a pear shader to add some texture in certain areas in addition to the tooling of the teeth etc. Then I used the water based  Eci-Flo "Forest Green" I got from the local Tandy, mixed it with distilled water... at a like 3:1 ratio (water to dye). 

I then hand scooped the mixture onto the mask randomly, trying to spread it out in some areas and letting it soak in some other areas. I would randomly wipe off the excess at random intervals and then just repeated that a few times until I was happy with the result. 

I also added some aging solution to the copper rivets to give them that aged look as well. 

Bikermutt was suggesting adding some brown into it to add an aged look but I'm honestly afraid to touch it and screw it up. 

[bikermutt07]

7 hours ago, Chief Filipino said:

Thank you for the input! I am/was hoping the spots of the veg-tan color would come through and be enough. I guess I wanted it to look more moss covered than old... I will give the brown some consideration though sometimes I don't like the way something looks and I mess with it only to ruin the whole thing! sometimes knowing when to stop is a weakness of mine. 

Nailed It! If it's supposed to look mossy you did it.

Fantastic job.

[kiwican]

Great job man! Your skill set has improved so much you should be proud of yourself

[Chief Filipino]

Thank you biker and kiwi! I still have a lot of room to improve and so many different projects I want to start but haven't gotten there yet. I greatly appreciate everyone on here!!

[silverwingit]

I'm glad you achieved your desired effect.

I just wanted to add to the texturizing and antiquing thread. Antiquing isn't the only way to go. 

Antiquing leaves the ridges light and the depressions dark. Sometimes you want the opposite effect. You can achieve some very interesting results using block dying instead of antiquing. Take a piece of 2x4 and wrap it in lengths cut from an old t-shirt. Staple the ends of the strips to the sides of the wrapped wood block so there aren't any exposed edges or wrinkles on the bottom of the block. Then dip the block in dye until it is saturated and with light pressure pass it over the leather such that it hits the "lands" and not the "grooves." You can take as many passes, overlapping them as you go until you get the desired shade. 

This is also a great way to apply an even coat of dye on a large piece of leather.

Michelle

[Chief Filipino]

7 hours ago, silverwingit said:

I'm glad you achieved your desired effect.

I just wanted to add to the texturizing and antiquing thread. Antiquing isn't the only way to go. 

Antiquing leaves the ridges light and the depressions dark. Sometimes you want the opposite effect. You can achieve some very interesting results using block dying instead of antiquing. Take a piece of 2x4 and wrap it in lengths cut from an old t-shirt. Staple the ends of the strips to the sides of the wrapped wood block so there aren't any exposed edges or wrinkles on the bottom of the block. Then dip the block in dye until it is saturated and with light pressure pass it over the leather such that it hits the "lands" and not the "grooves." You can take as many passes, overlapping them as you go until you get the desired shade. 

This is also a great way to apply an even coat of dye on a large piece of leather.

Michelle

That sounds cool! Do you happen to have any photos? Thank you!

[silverwingit]

Here's a zipper case that I block dyed. I hope you can see the natural features I was talking about.

MIchelle

Edited January 22, 2017 by silverwingit

[Chief Filipino]

1 hour ago, silverwingit said:

Here's a zipper case that I block dyed. I hope you can see the natural features I was talking about.

MIchelle

Nice work! I think that I do see what you are talking about. Thank you for the input and picture! 

 

[silverwingit]

My pleasure, Chief. And thanks for the complement.

Michelle