Dying

[Tpc]

Hi All, I have tooled this dragon onto 2mm veg for my daughters laptop cover. She would like it dyed black, but will it stand out in black? I was going to antique it then dye it light brown. What do you all think? Thanks. T

[Bob Blea]

Nice job on the tooling!  It looks like you have some good detail there.  I wouldn't want to dye it black myself because you will not be able to see the detail after your done unless you look really closely.

If it were me I would resist the whole piece then antique it.  That will highlight your dragon carving and darken the rest of the leather a bit.  If I really wanted the leather around the dragon a light brown, I would resist just the dragon and antique the whole piece.  I use Tandy Gel Antiques and when they go on bare leather I get a nice brown color from Saddle Tan or Tan, but the dragon with the resist would maintain it's more natural color but get the highlighting effect from the antique.  (NOTE: I haven't tried this trick with Feibings antique yet so I can't guarantee it works the same way.  It should.)

Probably an easier way to get the same effect would be to dye the untooled leather by hand with your brown dye, being careful to keep it out of your carving.  This can be hard with a large area because it's easy to get unevenness with dye (at least in my experience) and you have to be careful it doesn't bleed into your carving.  After the dye is good and dry apply a resist to the dragon and then buff the whole thing thoroughly to remove the excess dye pigments.  I would then finish resisting the whole piece and apply antique to the whole piece.

Anyhow that is how I would handle this.  Hope it helps.

[Grey Drakkon]

That is an excellent dragon!  I'd worry about the dragon disappearing as well, although you could go over the dragon again with acrylic paint in a lighter color.  The deeper areas would capture more of the paint and give it an outlined effect.  Before you do anything, I'd actually try tooling a scrap of the leather and try out the dye on that first, it would be tragic to ruin this!

[Bob Blea]

Grey Drakkon has excellent advice!  Try the techniques on scrap first so you can become comfortable with whichever one you choose first.  That is a really nice carving and it would be a tragedy to ruin it.

[Tpc]

Thank you all for the encouraging feed back and advice. What a great site this is. T

[retiredff]

On 10/24/2017 at 11:53 AM, Grey Drakkon said:

That is an excellent dragon!  I'd worry about the dragon disappearing as well, although you could go over the dragon again with acrylic paint in a lighter color.  The deeper areas would capture more of the paint and give it an outlined effect.  Before you do anything, I'd actually try tooling a scrap of the leather and try out the dye on that first, it would be tragic to ruin this!

Can you explain using the acrylic paint in more detail? That sounds interesting to me. Is it done like applying antique?

 

[Mattsbagger]

You use a small paint brush and paint it just like painting on anything else is the quick answer. Google painting leather or YouTube. Don Gonzales has a good video on it. And lots others on carving.

[retiredff]

OK, for some reason I thought the paint was used like an antique, apply then wipe off.

 

 

[JD62]

If she wants black why not resist the dragon, dye the rest ,then use black antique? If you are careful I don't think the dye will be drawn into the dragon.

[Tpc]

Jd62.  Yes, another good idea. I'll practice a few options. I'll post the piece when I've done it,(ruined or not)  to let you see the results. T