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Teaching myself leather floral design

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    Teaching myself leather floral design

    I recently made some knife sheaths. I wanted to do one with a western floral design. Since the shape of sheaths are kind of particular, you can't just copy a pattern you find on the internet. You have to be able to draw them.

    But I spent three days working on a drawing for my sheath, and still wasn't happy with the result. Here's a picture of the sheath. This was after watching a bunch of YouTube videos, reading stuff on line, and looking at pictures. I still struggled with it.

    I've been making leather stuff for five years or so now. I even took a leather carving class at Tandy that introduced me to western floral carving. I've taken several stabs at it without much success.

    So I was frustrated with it and decided I needed to finally conquer this difficulty. I bought a copy of _Creating Western Floral Designs_ by Bob Park, and I've already read it and started practicing. I decided I'm going to do at least one drawing every day for 30 days as well as practice my swivel knife skills and tooling patterns.

    These pictures are (1) Sheath of Frustration that took me three days just to design, (2) my first drawing after reading the Bob Park book, (3) a belt pattern I tooled and dyed that I got from Don Gonzales (whose YouTube channels I've been haunting a lot lately), and (4) my fourth drawing that I did last night.

    There's a lot of stuff on the internet about tooling leather but very little about drawing designs. Don Gonzales has a little bit, and I also found this guy named Joe Meling on YouTube who has some good stuff.

    Maybe when my 30 days are up, I'll come back to this thread and post my latest drawing and tooling efforts. It'll be interesting to see if I've made any improvement.


    Wish me luck!
    Attached Files

    #2
    Very nice! I am starting to fool around with tooling leather.


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      #3
      I wonder how many people have started doing the same thing this year since so many people were stuck at home for a while there. I've been inspired by a handful of people I found on Instagram--Clayton Kinney, Bruce Cheaney (who also has a YouTube channel), J. Mohon, J.D. Custom Leather, and a few others. There's some talented people out there, and I hope to be as good as them some day. I think some people have a natural talent for it because they learn it pretty quickly. But it's been a real struggle for me. I'm hoping there'll be a point at which it clicks and the light comes on or something like that.

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        #4
        Im in. Been working leather for awhile now still do it daily. That Don Gonzales youtube channel has taken up more of my time than anything lately, the speed at which he does complex patterns makes my face hurt. Keep at it, your stuff looks pretty good!!

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          #5
          Looks pretty good to me.

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            #6
            Stay at it Sam! That's pretty good!

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              #7
              I think those look great. If you don’t think those are really good, I can’t wait to see what you have after 30 days of practice. Very impressive.


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                #8
                nice!! I bought a swivel knife and was working on it for a while but never could get the hang of it...I just can NOT draw!lol

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                  #9
                  Very nice !

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                    #10
                    Pretty dang good, like it. Never had the patience to do much of that stuff. I tried when I was a kid.

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                      #11
                      Spend an hour a day drawing, about 20 minutes at a time, 3 times a day. Drawing can be learned, being artistic, well that is a deep subject, pun intended. Find a book about drawing acanthus leaves, they have the basics that you need for leather work, and engraving. Both of which are simple low relief carving.

                      Want to be different, and not do the floral designs, try Celtic drawing, also easily adapted into leatherworking. Look up Leatherworker.net sign up and beg for a mentor.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by dogcatcher View Post
                        Spend an hour a day drawing, about 20 minutes at a time, 3 times a day. Drawing can be learned, being artistic, well that is a deep subject, pun intended. Find a book about drawing acanthus leaves, they have the basics that you need for leather work, and engraving. Both of which are simple low relief carving.

                        Want to be different, and not do the floral designs, try Celtic drawing, also easily adapted into leatherworking. Look up Leatherworker.net sign up and beg for a mentor.
                        Thanks for the tips! I got up at 2 am and did two drawings last night. It's getting serious!

                        I have looked at some YouTube videos on engraving. There's one guy in particular who was really helpful in explaining the logic of the designs, i.e. how the scrolls and vines are supposed to flow. I've gotten more information on drawing from the engravers than from the leather people. I don't know why there isn't more information about drawing designs for leather tooling, but if I ever figure it out, I'm going to fill that void.

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                          #13
                          Don G is a good buddy of mine and his shop was right next to my office years ago. I used to go in and shoot the sh*t with him and drink a cup of coffee and watch what he had going on that week. Always blew me away how he could carry on a conversation and tool a belt without ever slowing down. I know he plans to expand his online lessons and tips on his YouTube channel and now that he has his new setup
                          In moulton I’m sure it won’t be long.


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                            #14
                            You are already drawing pretty cool designs. Nice pic showing your design AND the tooled leather next to it. Good luck with this, you have talent doing this for sure.

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by chase15 View Post
                              Don G is a good buddy of mine and his shop was right next to my office years ago. I used to go in and shoot the sh*t with him and drink a cup of coffee and watch what he had going on that week. Always blew me away how he could carry on a conversation and tool a belt without ever slowing down. I know he plans to expand his online lessons and tips on his YouTube channel and now that he has his new setup
                              In moulton I’m sure it won’t be long.
                              I am quite thankful for him.

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