Leather Art, Leather Jewelry, Leather Working - ﬁactive cus- …paintingcow.com/free-tutorials/online_tutorial_2007_08.pdf · 2009. 9. 29. · leather carving for awhile, take the

Copyright 2007 Paul Burnett 1 PAINTINGCOW.COM NEWSLETTER AND RLC TUTORIAL AUGUST 2007

Welcome to the first Painting Cow Newsletter. Each month all active customers will be sent this newsletter via e-mail which will be accompanied by a FREE Tutorial. The term �active cus-tomer� is defined by anyone who has purchased one of our educational courses or packets, or has signed up for our free on-line lessons. The newsletter is designed to inform you of new products, special deals, work shops, and tips and corrections on current publications. So please, if you change your e-mail address and want to continue to receive this newsletter make sure you advise us of the change.

Victorian Style Home Study Course: Lesson One ��Floral Ornamen-tation� is rapidly coming to completion. I was hoping to have it avail-able in July but now it looks like it will be the end of August. As soon as I am finished with the above lesson I will begin work on Designing with Stamping Tools: Lesson Two � Designing for Irregu-lar Shapes. The target date for it�s completion is late November 2007.

Our web master is now working on the opening the Painting Cow Gift Shop. Some of you may know that Karen and I make our primary income from our leather feather and leaf jewelry lines. We have been marketing them very successfully for 23 years. They make excellent gifts. We always have these at the shows we attend and many have purchased them at the show. The purpose of the Gift Shop is to provide an easy-to-use shopping method whereby you can purchase these and other completed works by Paul and Karen throughout the year. Paul also intends to add a few of the buckles and belts that he used to make. We hope that some of you will use the Gift Shop to do your shopping for Christmas.


Victorian Style Carving 4 Hour Workshop October 21, 2007 8:00 A � 12:00 P $40 Per Person Class Description: Victorian leather decoration is the basis for floral carving. Learning this more realistic style of floral decoration will give you a greater understanding of all types of western floral designs. You will learn how Paul�s realistic leather carving techniques apply to floral decorations. In-crease your skill and knowledge of proper swivel knife tech-niques. Learn how to build artist depth into your design by balancing the concave and convex shapes, and how to tool them convincingly. Leather will be furnished, but you may need to have a few scrap pieces handy to practice some new swivel knife techniques of which you may not be familiar.

Elements of Designing with Stamping Tools 4 Hour Workshop October 20, 2007 8:00 A � 12:00 P $40 Per Person Class Description: Learn the elements of design by tooling a 10� strip of Paul Burnett�s most popular stamp de-sign for 1-1/2� belts. Learn how to properly layout for a complex stamping design and how to keep your tooling balanced and in symmetry. Learn how to use decorative cuts to enhance stamping designs. Learn block dying and resist method for coloring and proper finishing of a belt strip.

I will be giving two workshops at the up-coming IFLG Show in Fort Worth Oct 20 and 21. You will need to check the IFLG Show packet for the details and tools list etc. Classes are limited to 12 people so sign up early. They are as follows:

Here is a tip for those of you who purchased the Creative Belt Stamping 2007 design package. I have made several belts with the number 10 design. I apologize�but I think I was being a bit too crafty in trying to come up with a border that was unique and new. It sure makes for a lot of work to break the border up the way I did. It can also cause some real problems when dying the border�.very easy to have a mishap. I redesigned the belt substituting a regular straight cut border instead of the broken border and found that it does not matter much to the viewer. It sure makes it go a little faster and much easier to dye the border. So here is the redesign. I also had a request for a tapered tip so I had to come up with a compliment to the design to make the transition.

Visit www.paintingcow.com for details on Creative Belt Stamping 2007.


Perhaps the greatest misconception about leather carving is that cutting a transferred design into leather is a simple, just-follow-the-line procedure. This one false concept is probably the single foremost reason why the majority of leather carvers have not reached the point at which they can skillfully execute a carving with a high degree of professionalism. If you are to truly understand the art of carving leather you ought to comprehend fully the im-portance of each cut made with the leather carving (swivel) knife. IT IS ESSENTIAL. In the standard approach to teaching and learning leather carving, usually very little space and time is given to understanding the correct process and techniques of cutting with the knife. How can we properly deal with the subject of CARVING leather, and devote the least amount of time and ef-fort on the actual act of carving with the swivel knife? EVERY CUT LINE MEANS SOMETHING. Each and every cut must be properly understood and executed if you expect to accurately portray a subject realistically in leather. If you are just beginning to learn to carve leather it will be a great temptation to eagerly get a project completed and forget the ESSENTIALS. THE GREATEST ERROR you can make is moving ahead without grasping the fundamentals. Perhaps many of you have done this. It is probably the reason why you haven�t progressed as you should. So if you have been doing leather carving for awhile, take the time to look over this vital lesson. Please, for you own sake, don�t skip any of the exercises in this tutorial. I�ve discovered that often it is some little thing that hasn�t quite fallen into place that is preventing your progress. Often it is found in the basic knowledge or skill that was missed in the very beginning. Here is your chance to make discoveries that will greatly improve your work.

A STUDY OF THE ESSENTIAL CUTS. If you truly want to learn to carve leather well, you must understand this: Good carvings will be the result of consistent practice to gain skill, along with keen observations and careful thought. Cutting a layout into leather is a matter of using your mind�.it is a thinking process�.not an exercise in seeing if you can follow a line. EVERY CUT LINE MEANS SOMETHING! I can-not say that too many times. It is your job to understand what every line means and how to exe-cute it. The purposes of my home study course �Realistic Leather Carving� and the new course �Victorian Style� is to teach you how to analyze your subject in order to accurately portray it in leather.


Practice is only valuable if you practice the correct things. Practicing the incorrect way will only reinforce error and bad habits. Let me introduce you to a new way of thinking about cut lines. I say a �new way of thinking� because there are many misconceptions that have been around in the leather world for a long time. It is usually these misconceptions that cause the problem of the novice carver. I have al-ready touched on one, that is: carving is merely following the layout line, sort of like tracing. That misconception leads one to just cut the line without much thought as to what it means or what it represents. That usually means that all your cut lines are pretty much cut at the same depth. Many that are left to learn on their own, may discover that some lines fade out, but that is about as far as it goes when it comes to varying the depths of cuts. Properly cut lines are usually cut with a wide range of varying depths. Therefore, IT IS ESSENTIAL that you learn to cut your lines with varying depth. In order to develop this skill you should practice, practice and practice. Think about this. What do the sport professionals do before each game of play. They practice the basics of their sport, because they know they are essential. They know that if they are to play the game well, they have to be able to do the basic things instinctively. There is just too much else to think about while playing than having to think about the basics, if they want to win. You must do the same.


EVERY OBJECT MUST HAVE ITS SPACE TO EXIST. The main reason why lines are cut at vary-ing depths is to create a sense of space in our carvings. Often this is referred to as �artistic depth�. I have heard some say: �I really like to make my cuts deep, so that I get a lot of depth in my carvings. Well, they may be deep but they don�t necessarily create �artistic depth�. Artis-tic depth is best described as a �sense of space�. That means that every object, or part of any object, appears to have it�s own space to exist. The depth of a cut is usually determined by the amount of space that exists between objects. That being true, you can readily see that cutting a line requires you to think about the space between objects as well as the shape or defining outline. You cannot �trace� or merely �follow the line� and expect to properly define your subject. EVERY LINE MEANS SOMETHING�.not only what it is but, where it is in rela-tionship to the other objects in your carving.

A revolutionary new concept in learning to carve leather. Paul Burnett shares with you his common sense approach to the skillful execution and artistic understanding of all forms of leather carving � for all levels of experience �� from beginner to advanced leather workers. SERIES ONE: A PROPER FOUNDATION LESSON ONE � Swivel Knife Expertise LESSON TWO � Carving Tools, Patterns & Procedure LESSON THREE � Cutting and Tooling for Space, Form and Texture Visit www.paintingcow.com for details and to pur-chase

This is the completed carving of the caduceus giv-ing every consideration to the forms and how they relate to one another.

THE CADUCEUS


CREATING BEAUTY AND GRACE Leather carving is a form of decorating leather. Usually when we think of decorating something we are thinking in terms of mak-ing it appear beautiful. There was an artist many years ago name Hogarth who observed that a certain rhythmic line was repeated in nature, in particular the natural things we thought of as beautiful, over and over again. That line became known as the �Hogarth line of beauty�. Notice how graceful the line is. View any well executed floral or pictorial carving and notice how ESSENTIAL this line is. Observe the cover of the July/August 2007 Leather Crafter and Saddlers Journal and notice that almost every cut line in this Sheridan Style carving by Travis Stillson is made up of this line. Do you think it would be wise to learn how to execute this line gracefully with skill and confidence? Prac-tice, practice, practice!!!!

You will also see many circles and near cir-cles in figure, pictorial and especially in flo-ral carvings. Layout a 1¼� diameter circle with a compass or template, then cut to the normal depth. Do not layout the inner cir-cles but cut them free hand using your mind to judge distance according to the outer line. Keep your lines about 1/8� apart. Continue into the circle. When it comes to cutting the tiny circle in the center you will notice that your knife has to be sharp and the leather much drier. It is ESSENTIAL that you learn to execute circular lines if you ever expect to make graceful scrolls. I have judged many com-petitions over the years and I have noticed that a real failing in a lot of carvings are the scrolls. Try these practice exercises to de-velop this ESSENTIAL skill.


There is an essential cut that many carvers just have never learned or heard of. For some reason it is widely overlooked. I call it the �TWIST CUT�. It is made by twisting the knife either in one direction or another or even continually. It is used in figure carving to better define minute changes in form and to make points or tree branches etc. I call your attention again to the July/August 2007 LCSJ cover. Notice how the edges of the flowers are all made with continu-ous twisting cuts with the knife. Points are best cut from the point, using the in-place twist. Position your knife blade at about 45 degree (right or left � 10 or 2 o�clock posi-tion) from the direction you are going to cut the line. Make an in-place twist as you begin to make your cut. You can also cut to the point but you need to end in a twist (which takes more practice) or with what I call the �L� or �J� cut.

This twist cut is MOST ESSENTIAL in accenting the decorative cuts in most floral work. Almost every kind of decorative cut starts with a twist.

THE TWIST

Notice the twist at the tip of the point

Lighter cuts because there is less distance between objects.

Cut deeper because they exist in infinitive space.

These cuts get progressively lighter as they merge towards each other.

If you use a straight edge make sure you allow for the thickness of your blade

Cut deeper because they exist in infinitive space.

CUTTING THE STAFF

As a general rule you should cut the foremost objects first. In this case we would cut the staff. But notice the snakes are in front of the staff some of the times. There is another general rule that must also be applied in this case: �Cut the line � not the outline�. In other words, you should cut the staff�s edges even though they are broken up. This will insure a more accurate carv-ing.


Be careful to stop a little short so as not to over-cut into the next body section of the snakes.

Cut lighter because the top of the snake head is over the wing.. Less space exist between the two objects: head and wing.

Cut deeper as there is infinity space below the snake�s head.

Notice how the cuts of the snakes are lighter as they pass over the staff and each other.

CUTTING THE SNAKES

Notice the that the feather tips are points. Cut from the point�begin with a twist for accent.

Interior lines cut much lighter than the exterior lines.

CUTTING THE WINGS

VICTORIAN STYLE HOME STUDY COURSE BY Paul Burnett

All modern styles of western floral carvings have roots in the Vic-torian Era and the floral patterns of the Victorian Style. The Victorian Style encompasses all types of leather carving: floral, human and animal figures. The Victorian Style remains very popular in design and home décor. It has many �looks� that appeal to a wide variety of folks. I think it is a perfect venue to increase ones skill and understanding of realistic leather carving. I think it is a good follow-up to the Realistic Leather Carving Home Study Course. You could call this Lesson Four of that course, being that the three lessons of that course are the foundation for this advance style of carving. In this first lesson Floral Ornamentation, I will introduce several types of the Victorian Style and show you where the course is heading. Then, I will take you through the various thought process that went into carving and tooling of the floral work of this cover. In Lesson Two I will introduce you to the concepts of adding figure work in with the floral work. Lesson One will be 15 pages of instructions as are most of my les-sons. I hope to have it available to you before the month of August is over.


FINALIZING WITH BACK CUTS The �Back Cut� is another essential cut that is usually forgotten. A back cut is a small cut made to connect lines and to better define the junction of two objects. This is defined in my course as �accenting the points of definition�. These cuts or essential to �pictorial defi-nition�. TIP: You should never make a back cut when lines join at steep angles (less than 30 and greater than 120 de-grees).

Compare this side with the op-posite side. Notice the difference

This side of the caduceus doesn�t have back cuts so that you can compare with the right side which has the back cuts. Notice the difference that a

back cut makes in defining the objects. This will play an important role when it comes

Don�t back cut steep angles it will cause slivers. Ac-cents will be made when tooling.

FOLOW-THE-LINE EXAMPLE Illustrated here is an all to typical carving. Notice that everything is cut at the same depth. There is a tendency to straighten out lines when just following a layout line. Notice how the top of the wings are cut with one straight line as opposed to the illustration at the top of the page. Never use seeders for eyes. Eyes are very rarely round and seed-ers are very seldom sharp . Now you know why it is important to practice the tiny little circles.

The cutting phase of a leather carving is a thoughtful process. Every cut line represents the FORM, SPACE AND TEXTURE of the subjects of the carving. It is not just a tracing of the layout lines. I will leave you with this final thought. The time to think about these three things is when you are making your original tracing and then again during the transfer to the leather. By the time you get to the cutting phase you should already understand what each line represents. In the September 2007 Tutorial I will take you through the process of tooling this caduceus to show you how the cutting relates to the tooling.

Documents

Leather Art, Leather Jewelry, Leather Working - ﬁactive cus- …paintingcow.com/free-tutorials/online_tutorial_2007_08.pdf · 2009. 9. 29. · leather carving for awhile, take the