Oak Leaves

[Mike Craw]

Hey Freak,

You don't need to appologize. I think that's an outstanding first effort.

Mike

[Romey]

Clay, excellent tutorial I for one apprecaite it as im sure all do. Freak thats great my friend. I wish i had time to learn to carve and such but hot steel and horses call to me far more

[Guest]

Wonderful tutorial Clay, I don't know how I missed it until now.....great stuff....that's two carvers in one day who said how much they love the HideCrafter Pebblers..... I think I feel a tool purchase coming on!

Dave Theobald

Edited September 29, 2007 by David

[ClayB]

Hey Freak,

You did a great job on your oak leaf!! If you really want to get a lot of practice on them, try a couple of fully carved oak leaf saddles. After that, you wont want to do them again for a LONG time.

I get a little more agressive with the pro petal than you did, but that's personal thing. I did a bunch more leaves last week and realized there were a couple things I could add to the tutorial that I tried on the center vein.

I used the angle lined beveler around the vein, then I tried to matt away from the vein with the same beveler. I think it made it look less like it was standing out on it's own so much.

Then I took a modeler and rounded of the edges of the vein.

Then for the final touch, I drag a lined tool down the center of the vein to give it some texture. You can use a lined beveler, pear shader or anything to do this.

Here is a picture of something I started on last weekend. This started out to be something fairly simple, but I keep having ideas that I want to try on it. Maybe I can finish it this weekend. I am thinking of coloring the leaves with fall colors, and will add a few more leaves that will be completly cut out and attached to another branch. The branches are made with leather putty. This will give the picture a 3-D look.

[Johanna]

Freak, that is a pretty snazzy oak leaf! :beer:

Clay is a good teacher, huh? Wouldn't it be fun to get him and a few other naturals in front of a video camera, You-Tube style? Anyone want to be an Internet star?

Johanna

[Regis]

Now those are leaves! Did you draw them all at once or did you add leaves ans you went along?

[ClayB]

Hi Regis,

It took me awhile to figure out how to do the leaves. Here is what I finally came up with. I copied several leaves off a pattern sheet that came with George Hurst's oak leaf book, The Mighty Oak. Then I cut each leaf out and arranged them on piece of paper. Taped them down and took them to the copy machine and printed them on to velum. Could have just traced them onto tracing paper but the copy machine is pretty handy. I think you could do the same thing with real leaves, but we dont have oak trees up here. If you did it that way, it might be easier to figure out how they attach to a branch too. Hopefully my idea for that will work too.

Clay

[ClayB]

I am always really reluctant to color my projects, but it doesn't stop me from trying. Sometimes they end up in the scrap pile, but more of them these days turn out ok. I tried to put some fall colors on some oak leaves yesterday. The first attempt with oil dyes turned out terrible. Then I decided to try the Eco Flow dyes I had picked up a month or so ago. I was really surprised at them. I guess I was expecting water based dyes to be just like acrylic paint. It sure isn't. These dyes are really nice! They are easy to apply, they mix and shade really well on the leather. I had a lot of fun playing with these and am actually looking forward to doing more with them. Maybe some of my elk pictures will get colored this winter after all.

(Kate, get out the brushes, you will have fun with these!)

Clay

[Brandon]

Hi,

A friend gave this to me some years ago, it had been in the envelope all these years.

This thread reminds me of it.

Seen it somewhere?

B.

Edited September 30, 2007 by Brandon

[freak]

Man Clay i think that look awsome man !! After looking at it for a few minutes i has to remind myself that, that's leather.

NIce job man and thanks !!