Looking for input

[Stetson912]

I'm making a bag. I posted this in the critique section as well but thought I would put it here for some more input. 

 

I can trace and follow a pattern but when it comes to pear shading and decorative cuts I'm at a loss.

This is 5/6 oz tandy leather and I used a Barry king knife with thin 3/8" blade. The leather probably isn't ideal but I think the majority of issues are because I'm not very good haha. 

Any resources or tips that may help me improve are very welcome thanks!

[Goldshot Ron]

Stetson,

If this is one of your first attempts, it looks good.  Your seeding looks good, along with the center flower.  However, let's start at the basics.  FLOW; imagine how a plant grows.  It starts out as a single seed.  From there it grows each leaf and stem; and, each leaf and stem flows back to the single seed.  Your knife cuts do not flow back to a single seed, but tend to be just cut lines radiating out to some unknown point.  This holds true to your decorative cuts also.  Envision each decorative cut growing out of a single seed or point.  As you make your decorative cuts, they should fade into an imaginary point or seed.  Your decorative cuts are basically knife cuts.  Practice making a blade nick on a piece of leather.  Take you blade to a starting point and bring the blade (fading out as you go) to the nick.  Now repeat this, using an odd number of cuts.  Most of your cuts were in even groups; 4 or 6 cuts.  Odd numbers work to balance your decorative cuts.  Al Gould, a Stohlman Award
Winner, recommends making practice cuts as "c"s and "s"s.  He says that basically most cuts are either a "c" or an "s".  So practice making these figures and working for FLOW.   I'd like to end here, but one last thing, do your pear shading before doing your decorative cuts.  Decorative cuts are the last this I do on a piece.

Keep practicing, Ron

[grumpyold]

This looks really good. I would agree with Goldlshot Ron that the details are not flowing, their just cuts. You may find his critique some what confusing, I would strongly suggest that you go to Paul Burnett's site and down load his Study Course, lesson 1,2,3. Opened my eyes! We all start cutting lines on patterns and not think about flow and creating depth. Look at the work of Hidepounder if you want to see flowing leather tooling that makes you want to run your fingers across it.  
Oh once you read Paul's work 12 times in a row, ' cause it will take that many times before it sinks in, then buy Bob Park's (Hidepounder) book and it will all fit together.

Edited April 1, 2017 by grumpyold

[Stetson912]

Not sure how I missed your replies but thank you both for your input. 

I agree with you Ron, the pattern isn't mine but downloaded from leathercraft library for a Tandy bag. Not that that matters I guess. I don't do as much tooling as I like too but I will definitely have to practice more. I pay too much attention on trying to follow a line that I miss the adjustments I need to make. And I didn't think about the odd number cuts. That makes sense though. 

Grumpy, I do have Bob Park's book and have been to Paul's site but I didn't see where to download what you're referring to. I will check again. I would have to say that while there are a great many good artists none seem to captivated my attention like Hidepounder's.  He is probably my favorite artist. 

Again thanks for the input!