Sheridan study

[Dragonfly42]

So I've been sitting here studying for a few hours and I'm seeing patterns emerge. Repeating "S" curves or figure 8s. VERY similar to Victorian filigree. Making diagrams and arrow lines seems to be helping me. Maybe it might help others. Also what should the percentage of background vs design be?!?!?

[JD62]

That's looking good so far ! I'm all so trying to learn this, and have found  Don Gonzales has some good videos on you tube, . His latest Y.T. vid. is about flow in Sheridan stile.

His web site has a bunch also.

[Dragonfly42]

On 9/3/2017 at 9:00 PM, JD62 said:

That's looking good so far ! I'm all so trying to learn this, and have found  Don Gonzales has some good videos on you tube, . His latest Y.T. vid. is about flow in Sheridan stile.

His web site has a bunch also.

Thank you for the heads up!! Watched it and drew up another today using bits and pieces of things I liked with some slight variations

[JD62]

Wow that's  some good looking stuff right there! Good idea using the colors to keep track of your thoughts if you don't get to tool for a while.

[Bob Blea]

Dragonfly your basically right about the 'S' shape.  The other shape you will commonly see, though not in belt designs because there isn't enough room, are circles with S shaped flow lines connecting them.  That is more common on larger projects like notebook covers where there's more room.

Regarding background area, there isn't a set rule that I'm aware of.  It's a matter of personal preference but bargrounding (which is traditional in Sheridan style) can be very time consuming and many people can't stand it, so it makes sense to create as little of it as possible.  I think what you have in your drawings looks pretty good, but I really try to keep my background areas pretty small. 

Bob

[Dragonfly42]

On 9/6/2017 at 1:49 PM, Bob Blea said:

Dragonfly your basically right about the 'S' shape.  The other shape you will commonly see, though not in belt designs because there isn't enough room, are circles with S shaped flow lines connecting them.  That is more common on larger projects like notebook covers where there's more room.

Regarding background area, there isn't a set rule that I'm aware of.  It's a matter of personal preference but bargrounding (which is traditional in Sheridan style) can be very time consuming and many people can't stand it, so it makes sense to create as little of it as possible.  I think what you have in your drawings looks pretty good, but I really try to keep my background areas pretty small. 

Bob

Thank you sir! I went ahead and tooled this pattern earlier and I was pretty happy until I ruined it with dye hahahaha. I'm not really sure what happened the dye almost ate the leather? Felt rotten almost for lack of a better way to say it. It never got hard at all. Overall I was happy with the flow of the pattern though

[Bob Blea]

I think your pattern looked pretty good and so did your tooling.  Too bad about the dye though. I don't know why it would do that.  What kind of dye was it?

[Dragonfly42]

1 hour ago, Bob Blea said:

I think your pattern looked pretty good and so did your tooling.  Too bad about the dye though. I don't know why it would do that.  What kind of dye was it?

Fiebings low voc black. That part went on beautiful. Then I put tan kote on and it feel apart

[Stetson912]

Not sure if you know or not,l, but there are a few books on creating floral patterns. One that's really good that I like is by our very own Bob park. I believe it's simply titled "creating Western floral design" and he illustrates his process nicely. It's similar to don't Gonzalez process as well. I think it's worth the purchase. And you're already touching on parts in the book as well. The other is titled something like " creating floral design for the Artistically Impaired" and I can't remember the author of top of my head. But it uses a similar method too, and is also a good read. Just thought I'd mention them for you. Cheers!

[cowboycolonel]

Pete Gorrell did the book for the artistically impaired

[Stetson912]

Yes! Thank you. I've read both of them and they both have good ideas and approaches. Ultimately, you need to do what feels right to you.