Demo: Oak Leaves

[Mannemal]

In regards to spraying on dyes, must one use a compressed-air sprayer, or is there a hand-pump alternative (like a fine misting spray bottle)?

Exactly - if people get anything out of this, I hope it's that there is no single "correct" way to carve anything. I appreciated the way you pointed that out in the tutorial you posted - it was an irresistible invitation to the rest of us who enjoy carving oak leaves (and other leaves) to share with others the array of techniques that are available to leather artists.

Ah, sorry, too late, but you are right - I should have taken advantage of the opportunity to do a coloring demo, as well. There will be other opportunities... Meanwhile, here is my oak leaf after antique and finish:

I am leaning pretty heavily towards phasing in the Eco Flo dyes, once my spirit dyes run out. My color samples came through my colorfast test with flying colors. The red and yellow are still very vibrant after 3 months running; the blue has faded somewhat to a grayish color, but hey, that's not bad considering it's been barraged with full sunlight every day for 3 months running. They would not get anywhere near that much light exposure normally (assuming my customers follow the care instruction I send with my pieces, that is).

I would be interested in knowing how well they can be used with dry-brushing techniques, since Tandy generally recommends spraying it on, rather than brushing. I tried brushing it on, and now I know why. <chuckle> I have some other projects on the bench that need to move forward today, but I'll put that on my list of things to try.

Thanks for the feedback...

Kate

[GuitarLeatherDopeFiend]

I know this is a super old thread, but I have a question about for (JustKate -> a.k.a. CitizenKate) the dying/antiquing section of this thread. I liked the idea of mixing in a bit of spirit dye in with the fiebing's antique paste, because I just tried fiebings antique finish paste for the first time yesterday, and it does an awesome job of the antiquing effect, but barely put any color on the untooled leather, so I had to go over it with a bottle of eco flo antique to get the color I wanted, but still couldn't get very even coverage. My question(s) are, will the spirit dye/ antique paste mixture penetrate a resist like super shene or wyoshene when doing sheridan style carving, (or any style using a resist), Or is the spirit dye diluted enough that the resist is still effective? My other question is - Is fiebings antique finish paste even intended for coloring leather? Or are you meant to dye the leather the desired color before antiquing? Last question, - Do you have a preference between fiebing's antique finish paste, and fiebing's antique leather stain? I tried to research what most people preferred before buying one of them, and people seemed to prefer the finish paste, so that's what I got. Thank you in advance, and thank you for the great tutorial! Great work!!!

[IngridG]

Thank you for the demo. I too wish I could see more oak leaf patterns done, yours is beautiful. I am just starting out too.

[Hawk Scarbrough]

My biggest problem is that I do a lot of very small oak leaves 1/4'' or less. I turned to some clay modeling tools (which I modified). I would welcome and suggestions on this.