The work of Jan Schoonover

[ClayB]

In the past few years I have been fortunate to take several classes from Jan Schoonover. Jan is a really talented leather artist from Billings Montana. Jan spent many years as a hunting guide in Wyoming and his up close and personal experiences with the animal gives him the knowledge to put realistic details into his leather art. Along with being a really good artist, Jan is also a really good teacher. I could never have carved or colored any of these pictures without his instruction. I encourage anyone who gets the chance to take a class from Jan to do so. He has talked about writing a book, or doing some videos, but so far you have to take a class to learn from him. You can see Jan's work at http://www.sculpturedleather.com

Jan's pictures are more like sculptures than just carvings. He does 3-D work similar to what Robb Barr did, but his techniques are quite a bit different. I have been doing some of the projects off of Robb's videos too, and while they get similar results, they do the steps differently.

Attached are some of the projects that I have made in Jan's classes.

Clay

[Johanna]

Clay, are those embossed? Did you use plugs or leather dust if you did? I really enjoy looking at your work, and I'm so glad you are sharing. I don't carve, tool or otherwise disgrace perfectly good leather with my limited artistic ability, so I can appreciate the effort that goes into getting the depth and the end coloring to look natural.

Here is Billy 2-shews' tribute to Robb Barr.

Johanna

[ClayB]

All of the pictures from Jan's classes are what Jan calls "extreme embossed". Jan uses a mixture of leather dust and rubber cement to fill in the cavity created when stretching the leather from the backside. I tried using leather plugs once, like Al Stohlman did, but I didn't like the process at all. I like the leather putty mixture a lot better. When doing the extreme embossing like Jan or Robb Barr did, they also slice lots of the parts of the picture loose from the background (ears, feathers, horns, or even the whole animals face) Some times these parts are also backed with leather putty to stiffen them or shape them. When Jan cuts an animal's face loose, he will form the back side of the face with putty and it can look almost as good as the front side when he is finished painting it. We did a quarter horse class in Sheridan this year where the whole head and neck of the horse were cut loose from the background. Mine didn't turn out the greatest, but I will try and get some pictures of it and post them later. I have attached some side view pictures that show the embossing a little better. The deer is one that Jan did, the rest are from my class projects.

In a couple of the classes I have taken, there have been people that have never even held a swivel knife before and their projects still turned out pretty good. I encourage everyone to take classes from the experts whenever they have the chance. I didn't think I would ever learn to color leather, but with lessons from Jan and Silva, I think I am getting there.

Clay