Badlands Leather Art

New lesson available

2012-01-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

I know I'm behind schedule, and I've had a few emails wondering if there were going to be more lessons in the Sculptured Leather Lesson Series. The answer is "Yes". We've just released lesson #8 in the series, The African Lion. There are also more lessons in the works. We've done the prep work on a Bighorn Ram lesson. Hopefully it wont take me as long to get it written as it did this latest lesson. I'm also planning a trip back to Billings to work on another lesson with Jan in the near future. That one will be on a White Tail Deer. The release of new lessons may be slower than when we started the series, but we will continue to work on the lessons. Thank you to each and every one of you that has supported this project through your purchases.

Australia (part two)

2011-09-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

I seem to have run out of space in the first post so here's part two.

After the conference we had a couple more days to sight see before we headed for home. We really wanted to see kangaroos and koala bears and several people suggested we go to the Australia Zoo. So Monday morning, Les rented a car and we headed off to the zoo. We got to see a lot of interesting animals. The kangaroo pens were very large and you could walk right up to all of them. Stacy got to pet a kangaroo and a koala bear. Here's a few pictures of Australian wild life. Some of them might end up being patterns for future leather projects.

One of the ladies that had attended the conference had heard we were looking for things to do after the conference and invited us to spend a couple days with her and her family. After we finished up at the zoo, we drove on to her place. Liz and Duncan opened their beautiful house up to us and treated us like family.

Remember, this is WINTER in Australia!!

The next morning, we had breakfast on the beach at Noosa. Here we are, Les (our driver), Duncan and Liz (our hosts), me, and Stacy. The cafe we were at was right across the street from the river.

After breakfast we went on down to the beach where the river ran into the ocean.

Here we are again on the beach at the ocean.

When we got back to Liz and Duncan's house, we picked mandarins right off the tree in the back yard. How come winter up here in the Dakotas can't be like this???

We spent a second evening with Liz (Duncan had to leave) before heading back to the airport. The hospitality of every one in Australia was wonderful and we can't thank them enough for all they did for us. This was a trip we'll never forget and hopefully we'll have a chance to go back someday. We made so many terrific new friends!!

(There, I finally got this post done, 2 months later)

Australia (part one)

2011-08-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a very busy summer for us. Stacy and I have both left our jobs. We spent two weeks in Australia, and now we are in the middle of a move to South Dakota where we'll be starting a whole new adventure. With all that's been going on, I've not kept up very well with the blog. Here's how things went in Australia.

The plane we were on

We left for the Dimensions in Leather conference in Brisbane, Australia on July 5. The plane trip over there was long, but bearable. We were met at the airport by Cherryl Mc Intyre and Les Bond. Cherryl is the driving force behind this conference, and Les is a good friend of hers (and now ours too). Cherryl took us back to her place where we were to be staying for the first few days. The drive back to her house was surprising to me. I expected Australia to be flat and dry. Seeing all the different trees and tropical plants was a pleasant surprise. After settling in and getting a little rest (not cramped in a plane), Les took us for a ride to the Gold Coast. Stacy had never seen an ocean before so this was a first for her.

Les and I by the beach

Stacy and I on the beach

Stacy trying sushi

Buildings on the Gold Coast

After getting some lunch, (Stacy tried sushi for the first time ,I passed ) we wandered around a bit more before heading back to Brisbane.

Looking down the valley from Toowoomba

Peter Tangey, Robert Withahn, and me

Friday morning we helped Cherryl pack up what seemed like half of her house in a van to move to St. Leo's for the conference. Cherryl had tubs of supplies for each of the different classes that would be held at the conference. For her own classes, she had several heavy sewing machines. She also had made up food for lunch breaks during the conference. The preparation that she puts into making this conference a success must take months. Cherryl and Les took off for St. Leo's to unload and set up for the conference while Peter Tangey picked up Stacy and me and took us on another road trip. This time we headed up towards Toowoomba. We got to see some more of the Australian country side. The drive took us through some of the area that was affected by the floods earlier this year. We ended up at the home of Robert Witthahn for lunch. Robert lives at the top of the range and has a beautiful view overlooking the valley we had driven through. His gave us a tour of hisworkshop in the back yard. Robert has a background as a book binder but spends most of his time these days making leather covered boxes with exotic leather inlays.

Some of Robert's boxes

He showed us how he makes the cardboard boxes first, how he skives the leather with knives he makes himself, and then how the boxes are covered with leather. After our tour of Robert's shop, we spent some time exploring his backyard and all the plants and bushes. We even got to see some parrots as they landed in the bird feeder. When we got back to Cherryl's house that evening, we met Takeshi Saito. Takeshi is a leather carver from Japan and he would be in most of my classes at the conference.

CityCat ferry

One of the many bridges over the Brisbane River

Clay and Takeshi

Saturday morning, we all headed over to St. Leo's which would be our home for the next week. After getting settled into our room, seeing where I'd be teaching for the next week, and having a little lunch, Takeshi, Stacy and I took a short walk down to the river where we got onto the CityCat ferry and rode it into Brisbane. We spent a couple hours wandering around before heading back to the college. Other participants of the conference were starting to show up by the time we got back and we started to meet a lot of people.

Sunday was the opening day of the conference. Booths were open for the vendors to show and sell their wares, from leather and lace to tools and supplies. Some of the vendors represented were Birdsall Leather, Chaylor-Fenneli, Leffler, and Les Bond had a nice selection of hand made mauls, modeling tools and pro petals. As the day went on, we met more and more people. Sunday evening was the opening dinner and official start of the conference. (I'll have to take a picture of all the neat tools I got from him)

Classes started on Monday morning. The first class I taught was on carving eyes. I was a little nervous about teaching in a foreign country to a bunch of people that I didn't know, but it didn't take long to realize this was going to be a lot of fun. The people in the class were great and quite a few of them were taking more than one of my classes so we got to know each other pretty good by the end of the week.

Everyone did a great job on the different eyes we worked on in the class. We had to work a little late and push pretty hard, but we got the eagle eye painted before it was time to eat!

Takeshi, Mary-Ellen and me

Tuesday and Wednesday I taught a class on carving and embossing a quarter horse. Stacy was off taking a class on how to make a hand bag with Cherryl, so there aren't any pictures during the class. Stacy and sewing machines don't usually get along real well, so I wasn't sure how that was going to go, but her bag turned out great!!

Stacy's hand bag

Horses from my class and some hand bags from Cherryl's class

Gabrielle and Sylvia

Cherryl, Gary and um.... I forget

Wednesday evening was the Hawaiian night party. Everyone was supposed to dress up Hawaiian. Quite a few people did (some got really into it!) There was live entertainment, dancing, a limbo contest and a wee bit of alcohol.

Thursday I taught a class on how to carve hair, feathers and horns. This is one of my favorite classes because there are so many different techniques that are used in "extreme embossing" being introduced. It's fun to see people's faces when they see how some of these things are done and how much depth and texture it adds compared to traditional figure carving. Once again, Stacy (my photographer) found a class to take. This time she spent the day with Robert Withahn learning how to make a leather covered box. (I'd have loved to be in that class too!) They first made a card board box, then covered it with kangaroo leather with a fish skin insert, and finally, made another card board box to keep the covered box in (and they did this all in one day!!)

Stacy's leather covered box

Leather box in box

Kim and Fiona

Mick and Peter

Sample bears for class

Friday started the last of my classes, carving and embossing a black bear. Most of the people in the class has taken at least one other class during the week.

Friday evening was "market night" where many people at the conference had a chance to sell their products from different types of leather to tools to finished products. I picked up a couple boxes from Robert, a billfold from Mick, and Stacy got some leather jewelry.

Saturday was also an exhibition of work from all the participants in the conference. There was some amazing work shown. I was a little surprised at the variety of work shown. It was quite different than the shows I have seen in America. The Australians and Kiwis do a lot of braiding (plaiting), molding, hand bags and other types of leather work besides just carving. If you are on Facebook, you can see all the pictures from the exhibition on my Badlands Leather Art page album titled Dimensions in Leather.

Tickets were sold all week for a large table full of really nice raffle items. Before the banquet on Saturday evening, drawings were held for the raffle items. My "Buffalo Feathers" picture was won by our new friend Mary-Ellen McEvoy.

Peter (saddle maker) and Neil (whip maker)

The banquet was a lot of fun. We were kept entertained by Peter and Neil, Kim and Fiona. The whip makers and the saddle makers were constantly picking on each other and Kim and Fiona.

Kim and Fiona

Cherryl giving her closing speech.

The instructors at the convention

Pond on the campus grounds

This is where we spent most of the week

Sunday was spent packing up and saying goodbye to all our new friends from the conference. It was a wonderful experience for us. Everyone we met was so kind to us and a lot of people asked when we were coming back. We had numerous invitations to stay with people if/when we do come back and we are looking forward to it!

Les, Stacy, Clay

Cherryl, Stacy, Clay

Monday after the conference was over, Cherryl had to take off for another commitment. We said our goodbyes to her and thanked her for hospitality and for the opportunity she gave us to attend this conference and visit Australia.

Donate a belt to help those effected by Queensland flooding

2011-05-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

"Donate a Belt"

So many people have been affected by the recent flooding and Tropical Cyclone Yasi.

Many communities have been devastated.

Some families have lost everything.

The ultimate gift, give freely, creates a ripple effect that will provide a positive change!

You can help make a positive difference by donating a belt to these effected people.

REQUIREMENTS

Make a belt or belts or any size for children or adults male or female.

Required width 35-38 mm... of your design, plain belt, carved belt, braided belt or plaited belt.

The decisions is yours to create, make and donate.

Please make a belt that you would be proud and happy to give to your own family and close friends.

Please pay attention to finishing the edges.

To be completed by 10th July for display at the Dimensions in Leather Conference.

If you are not attending the conference, please post to

18 Daffodil Crescent Calamvale QLD 4116.... no later than 1st July

Lets revel in the positive pride that comes from giving freely, and giving without the need of reward.

The Leathercraft Association of Queensland committee will manage the disbursement of the donated belts.

Committee members will not receive any remuneration for their service.

Jim Linnell Workshop in Miles City, MT

2011-05-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago Jim Linnell held a leather carving class at the historic Miles City Saddlery in Miles City, MT. Miles City is Jim's hometown and he goes back to visit the week before the Rocky Mountain Leather Trade Show in Sheridan, WY. A couple years ago Jim taught a class there on how he carved the cover of 2009 Tandy catalog . Several of the people that attended thought it would be fun to make it an annual event. It didn't work out last year, because the weekend before the Sheridan show was the annual Miles City Bucking horse sale but it did work out this year. Miles City Saddlery has a lot of leather history. Several of the old masters worked there including Ken Griffin and F. O. Baird. Jim decided to work up a pattern based on the style used by some of the old masters that have worked in this shop. He came up with a pattern that had a classic floral pattern surrounding a figure carving of a bronc rider. In the class, Jim showed us techniques that would have been used by the old masters to carve and tool a pattern like this. He showed us how a "crowner" tool was used to create scallops on leaves. Jim used a lot of different tools in carving the floral parts of the pattern to show that you can use the tools you have and don't necessarily have to run out and buy specific tools for every pattern you carve. The figure carving portion of the pattern is fairly simplistic as it would have been done in that time period. The back and inside pocket of the notebook was decorated with a swivel knife design. All the notebooks created in this class were stamped with a special limited edition maker stamp created specially for this class that will not be used ever again, making these pieces somewhat collectible. You don't have to be around Jim long before you realize he has a passion for teaching leather carving. Hopefully we'll get to do something like this again next year. Thanks Jim for doing these classes and thanks Jack for allowing us to gather at Miles City Saddlery!

Here's my completed notebook.

And the inside.

Quarter Horse Lesson is now available

2011-05-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that Lesson #7, the Quarter Horse, is now available for download on the Badlands Leather Art website. In this lesson, we offer you a choice as to how far you would like to bring the horse off the background leather. We are also including a second tracing pattern to give you even more options for this project. This is a fairly easy lesson to work on and would be a good choice for anyone who has been thinking about trying extreme embossing but been worried they couldn't do it. It will be the subject of one of the classes I'll be teaching in Australia in July.

Lesson #8 will be an African Lion and I'll start writing it in the near future. I'm hoping to have it ready before I leave for Australia.

Lesson #8 will be an African Lion

2011-05-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

I traveled back to Billings early Friday morning to start working on lesson # 8 in our series. We're trying to vary our subjects to keep things interesting and hopefully we'll come up with something that everyone interested in trying this type of leather work will enjoy. This next lesson will be on an African Lion. I really enjoyed working on this one with Jan. One of the challenges in this project is the long, shaggy hair on the mane. It starts out with sort of a star in the center and goes out in all directions from there with varying lengths. It's some of the longest hair I've done on one of these projects. The mane is also interesting to paint with all the different shades of color. I decided to concentrate on taking notes and pictures of the coloring process while Jan was painting his, so I painted my at home today.

This project was actually one of the quickest ones to finish that we've done so far. We finished up early Saturday afternoon and I made it back home in time to go out to supper with my wife and son and then go and watch the grand march at my daughter's prom. It's hard to imagine that my little girl, my youngest child, will be graduating from high school in 2 weeks!

Jan has created a few lion pictures and they have been good sellers for him. I remember one full body lion he did a few years ago that took first place at a big fair in Montana. This is the first African lion I've finished, but I'm looking forward to trying it again in a little more relaxed setting. The top picture is Jan's. The one below is the one I did.

Modifying a seeder to make scales

2011-04-22T10:44:00.000-07:00

When Jan and I worked on the Brown Trout picture in the Sculptured Leather Art lesson series, he showed me a simple modification to make a seeder tool into a "scale" tool. The seeder tool can be used as it comes by tilting the tool at an angle, but by grinding off about 1/3 of the face of the tool, it is a lot easier to. I picked up a few spare seeder tools at one of my trips to Tandy Leather Factory while I was in Billings and decided to modify them today. It was very quick and easy to do with a dremel tool and a grinding disc. I modifed three tools so I'd have a variety of scale tools to work with, S631, S632 and S633.

This first picture shows the S633 tools as it comes from Tandy.

I used a Dremel tool with a grinding disc to file off about 1/3 of the face of the tool.

Here is how the tool looks with the modification made. Simple and quick to do, and now the tool doesn't have to be leaned on it's edge to make scales.

(below) Jan's brown trout "scaled" with a tool similar to this one. Click on the picture to get a close up.

Some history on the hairing knife from Paul Burnett

2011-04-20T05:41:00.000-07:00

I received an email from Paul Burnett after I made the post about the hairing knife and I got his permission to share it here. I thought some of you might be interested in the history of this tool. Thanks Paul for sharing this. If any of you don't know who Paul is, check out his Painting Cow website. Paul is an amazing leather artist and teacher.

"I developed this tool in order to make my life sized birds. Needed something that would actually split the edges of some feathers. I taught a class in Cleveland on making a 3D life sized cardinal and that is where Robb and Robert learned of the tool. At the same time I introduced them to the modified F910 to the shape of the F902 which is another tool I modified to make better feathers, mainly splits and edges. How I did that is illustrated in my “American Kestrel Wildlife Study”. The “Robb and Robert Show” (as they were affectionately known) even gave the two tools names: “Ike” and “Mike”. I tried to get Leather Factory to make one where the blades could be easily replaced but they didn’t see the need. Randy Knutson invented the concept of putting the blades in a swivel knife and sold them. They could use 2 to 8 blades (I think). I think Robb might have sold them for him? I know Randy sold them to Hidecrafters for a while and also to the Japanese tool company. Randy may still have some for sale? Just a little leather craft trivia I thought you might want to know. Paul Burnett"

Making a simple hairing knife

2011-04-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

A lot of people ask "where do I get a multi-blade hairing knife. Hidecrafters used to carry one that Robb Barr used but I don't think they do anymore. Jan Schoonover sells one made out of a modified Craftool swivel knife for around $65. Bob Beard told me how to make a very simple version of these knives and said that he and Robb used them a lot to make feathers. I've made a bunch of these and used them in classes and they work just fine.

Start by cutting a 3 inch long piece off a 1/2 inch wooden dowel.

Then mark the center on one end of the dowel and drill a 1/4 inch hole in that end, about 3/4 inch deep. It doesn't matter if you are off center a little.

You will need some 2-part epoxy, available at most hardware or craft stores. You will also need 5 number 16 X-acto knife blades.

This stuff is made by Super Glue and it's nice because the syringe has 2 plungers and you don't have to measure the resin and the hardener.

Stir the resin and the hardener together.

Fill the hole in the dowel with the mixed up epoxy.

The hole doesn't need to be filled all the way to the top because some will push out when you stick the blades in. You will want to poke something in the epoxy to make sure there isn't an air bubble preventing the epoxy from going in the hole.

Stack 5 X-acto knife blades together and insert them into the epoxy filled hole. Be careful as some of the epoxy may spill over the top and run down the sides. Wipe off any excess on the sides, but if it stays on top, that's okay.

Press the tips of the blades against something smooth and hard to line them up evenly. Don't use your finger tip to try to line them up. It doesn't work well and requires band aides!

Stand the knife up on it's end and let the epoxy dry the required length of time. Your knife will then be ready to use.

The knife is held like a pencil and hair can be drawn onto the leather. Cut rows right next to or slightly over lapping each other to avoid gaps in the hair. These blades are a lot sharper than a regular hair blade and cut a lot deeper into the leather.

A scalpel is then used to cut under the rows of hair that were made with the multi-blade knife.This allows the individual hairs to separate and lift, giving the appearance of realistic hair.

In Your Face- Cape Buffalo

2011-04-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

In Your Face- Cape Buffalo is a painting by wildlife artist Daniel Smith from Bozeman, MT. My friend Crystal shared a link to this picture with me a while back. I really liked the depth that the artist achieved in the painting. I wondered if I could get the same depth in a leather carving. I saved the link and kept going back and looking at it, not being able to get the picture out of my mind. Finally I decided to sent the artist an email asking for permission to try carving this picture into leather. I was happy to get a response from him saying it was okay and that he'd like a photo of it when I was finished.

This picture was challenging because of all the different layers of depth and the different textures. The shape of the horns and the depth in the eyes are what intrigued me the most. You have to wonder how the ear got mangled. The bird sitting on the nose was a fun addition and the shaggy hair was a neat texture to replicate. Finally, the little piece of grass hanging out of his mouth added the final bit of "attitude" to the finished picture. It was a lot of fun to do something different and use all of the techniques I've learned from Jan in the last couple years create this piece.

Native American Portrait Lesson is now available

2011-03-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

Lesson #6 in the Sculptured Leather Art lesson series is now available for purchase at Badlands Leather Art.
This lesson focuses on carving the features of a human face. The lesson does not contain coloring instructions. The picture is finished with a sealer that brings out the natural color of the leather.

The subject of the next lesson in the series will be a horse head and should be available in May.

My new knife

2011-03-12T11:45:00.000-08:00

I got my Christmas present from my son Jake this week, a new round knife from Paul Zalesak of Leather Wranglers. Paul got slammed with orders right before Christmas so there was a wait but it was well worth it. I've got 2 of Paul's swivel knives and since getting them, they are the only ones I use. I'm sure that will be the same with this new round knife. Paul's tools come SHARP and stay that way. They are also really purty!! This round knife has a custom rosewood burl handle and I used my birthday money to order a skiving knife to match. Paul and Rosa are a couple of the nicest people you are ever going to meet and if you're looking for some of the best leather tools you're ever going to use, check out Leatherwranglers.com

Lesson #7 in the Sculptured Leather lesson series

2011-03-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

I've been planning to go to Billings to work on the next lesson in our series for several weeks now, but the weather and other things have kept it from working out. I finally made it down there this past weekend and Jan and I worked on an embossed horse portrait. This will also be the subject for one of the classes I'll be teaching at Dimensions in Leather in Australia in July. I've done this project once before, in a class at the Rocky Mountain Leather Trade Show in Sheridan, WY a few years ago. We did this one a little different than Jan usually does, leaving the nose attached to the background instead of cutting the entire horse head loose. I think this will make the lesson (and the class) a lot easier. When the whole head is cut loose, it takes a lot more time and work to finish up the backside of the picture. Here are pictures of Jan's and my completed projects.

Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program

2011-01-30T10:05:00.000-08:00

It's once again time to apply for grants to the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program through the ND Council for the Arts. Each year this program allows master craft persons to pass on their knowledge and skills to apprentices wishing to learn traditional skills. Grants are available for up to $2500. Over the years, grants have been made available to artists in the following crafts: Dakotah storytelling, Vietnamese embroidery, Czech Easter egg decorating, Armenian copper bas relief work, blacksmithing, saddle construction, German-Russian willow basketry, Hidatsa quillwork, Sudanese music, Norwegian Hardanger embroidery. For more information on the program, follow these links.

Program guidelines

Application instructions

Application

I've had the opportunity to participate in this programs as an apprentice twice in the past. Both times, I was learning saddle making skills from a local saddle maker, Rex Cook. Rex has participated many times in the program helping eager apprentices learn the art of making a saddle. Rex now serves on the Board of Directors of the ND Council for the Arts and just this past year was inducted into the ND Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Several other states have similar programs to the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. You can find out what your state may offer by doing a Google search.

Below are the saddles that I made through this program under the supervision of Rex Cook.

DIL flyer

2011-01-29T15:04:00.000-08:00

Peter Main just sent out this flyer for the Dimensions in Leather Conference

Dimensions in Leather

2011-01-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

Cherryl sent out a newsletter yesterday for Dimensions in Leather, introducing me as a substitute teacher for Jan Schooonover at this years conference. . The website for Dimensions in Leather was updated last week too. I guess it's official now. I remember how substitute teachers got treated back when I was in school, and I'm trying not to let that make me too nervous.

One of the classes for the conference is on hairing and feathering techniques. Jan usually teaches how to carve several different horns and antlers in this class along with the hair and feathers. I've been practicing different portions of each class to see how much time they will take and if there are things I need to spend more time on. Here's a picture of the horns and antlers.

Lesson #5, the Bald Eagle is now available

2011-01-09T16:33:00.000-08:00

Announcing the release of lesson #5 of the Sculptured Leather Art Lesson Series with Jan Schoonover. This latest lesson covers the carving, coloring and embossing of a Bald Eagle. One of the main focuses of the lesson will be carving and cutting feathers. There are many different sizes and shapes of feathers on the eagle and Jan teaches the different techniques he uses to create each of them.

Eagle Eye

2011-01-05T19:10:00.000-08:00

In the last post, the last picture was of an eagle eye. There was (at least) one major mistake in the carving of the eye because I mis-traced the pattern. The tear duct on the eagle ended up being about 3 times larger than it should have been. Since I was just practicing, I went ahead and finished up the piece. I also left the piece as a flat carving as I was using it as an entry in a coaster carving challenge on Leatherworker.net. One of the main things Jan always impresses on me is to pay attention to detail.

Sunday afternoon I had a chance to carve the eagle eye again, tracing it correctly and doing some embossing on the carving. You can see in the new picture the difference embossing makes. In the first carving you could tell I was trying to carve an eagle. In this new picture, by using the techniques Jan has taught me, you can start to see the fierceness in the bird's eye. One of the things Jan pointed out to me when we were doing the eagle lesson is that the eye of a song bird is on the side of the face while the eyes on birds of prey face forward. By making a cut under the brow ridge and pushing the ridge out, you get a lot of depth to that area. Then by stamping down in front of the eye, and raising the back side of the eye, the eye starts to look forward. These little changes to the flat carving make a big difference and that's why I really enjoy extreme embossing!

Eyes

2011-01-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

One of the classes Jan Schoonover teaches focuses on carving realistic looking eyes. I've always wanted to take the class but it never seems to work out for me. I should have been the first class I ever took from him, and it almost led to me never having taken any. Why? Well, one summer many years ago we decided to go to Billings to spend a weekend and do some shopping. One place I wanted to go since I had never been there before was Montana Leather Company. It's a cool store and they carry a lot of great leather and leather supplies. When I was up at the counter getting ready to check out, there was a flier for Jan's class they were going to hold the next weekend. I asked about signing up. The girl behind the counter told me I didn't have to sign up, just show up next Saturday morning. Well, the next weekend I got up at 3 in the morning to make the trip back to Billings and be there by 8 for the class. It was a long trip, early in the morning, but I was excited. When I got to Montana Leather I was confused when there was nobody in the parking lot. I went to the door and it said they didn't open on Saturday until 9. Okay, I must have misunderstood. So I sat and waited until 9. Still nobody in the parking lot except for the person who unlocked the door. When I asked about the class I was told it was cancelled because nobody had signed up. What!!! I drove 320 miles and they aren't having a class! Needless to say I was upset and swore to myself I'd never do business with that place again. Well, a year or so later Jan agreed to teach a class in Mandan, ND at Interstate Western Works, a store owned by Chip Liebel who is a very talented leather carver herself. I decided to take a chance and sign up for the class. In that class we carved a bighorn ram, my first embossed leather project and I was thrilled with how it turned out. My leather carving took a turn in a new direction and that ended up being the first of many classes with Jan. I even forgave Montana Leather Company and do a lot of business with them these days (although I'm still a little miffed that I drove 650 miles that day many years ago to find out the class was cancelled). Okay, where's this all going? Well, a few weeks ago I received an email from Cherryl McIntyre. Cherryl puts on the Dimensions in Leather conference in Brisbane, Australia every other year. Jan Schoonover was scheduled to teach at the conference to be held in July this year. Well, Jan has been having some minor health problems and he was concerned that he may not be able to teach 6 days of classes, so he decided to back out of going to Australia. He had been looking forward to the trip for a whole year and was pretty disappointed about not being able to go, but didn't want to disappoint his students either if his health prevented him from being able to teach. Jan told Cherryl that she should contact me and see if I would go in his place to teach his classes. After talking with Jan, talking with Cherryl, talking with my wife, we decided we'd go to Australia. It's someplace I've always wanted to see and this is a great opportunity for me. So you've followed my ramblings this far and you are still wondering, "where the heck is this going?". Well, one of the classes scheduled for the conference in Australia is Jan's eye class. I've still never taking the class and now I'm supposed to be teaching it! On my last trip to Billings, Jan gave me a couple different sheets of eye patterns and told me to pick the one I'd like to teach. In the last couple days I decided to go ahead and try to carve a few of the patterns on his sheets. So here are a few of the eyes I did. The patterns he gave me basically just show the eyes and a little detail around them. I free handed in more of the heads on most of them so parts of them aren't really in proportion or anatomically correct, but I got a pretty good idea of what I am going to be doing. I also found out that if you don't pay attention when you are tracing a pattern and it move on you, you get a really mis-shaped eagle eye. I went ahead and carved and colored it anyway since it was a practice piece anyway. So finally, here's some eyes.

Native American Portrait with Jan Schoonover

2010-12-15T20:38:00.000-08:00

Jan and I just finished up the latest project in the Sculptured Leather Art Lesson Series. Lesson #6 will be a Native American portrait. Jan decided that this picture looks really nice with the natural leather color, so there will be no coloring on this one. Jan's turned out really nice, as usual. I think mine would have turned out better if I'd have had a little more time to work on the detail. While we were waiting for putty to dry, Jan went over the the things he teaches in a hairing class. Tomorrow before I head back for home we're going to go over the steps for creating several different types of horns and antlers. The hair and horns lesson is one of the classes scheduled for the Dimensions in Leather conference coming up in Australia in July.

Mountain Lion lesson now available

2010-12-02T20:58:00.000-08:00

Lesson #4 in the Sculptured Leather Art Lesson Series with Jan Schoonover is now available for purchase from the Badlands Leather Art website. In this lesson, Jan teaches all the steps to make a realistic, 3 dimensional portrait of a mountain lion. This ended up being the longest lesson so far but I didn't want to leave anything out. There are several techniques used to create the different lengths of hair on the lion along with embossing, coloring, and finally, how to add whiskers.

I'll get to work on the next lesson (an eagle) soon and try to have it out before the end of the year.

Another partnership project

2010-11-24T20:23:00.000-08:00

This project began when I saw a pattern in the Great Book of Tattoo Designs by Lora S. Irish. She has a buffalo pattern in the book and the way it was drawn, the hair on the buffalo reminded me of feathers. I liked the idea, so I decided to go ahead and carve a buffalo with feathers instead of hair. The first picture I did was painted and framed and made it's way to a couple of leather shows. The judges at the first show it went to commented that the hair on the buffalo looked more like feathers. Um...... that's what I was going for!

When I finished the carving, I had a request to show how I did it, so I carved another one and wrote it up as a lesson on Leatherworker.net. I decided instead of finishing the second one myself, it might be fun to get some other people involved in the project. One of my friends suggested that adding some buffalo flying might show that I really did intend for the hair to look like feathers. I asked Kathy Flanagan if she would like to add to the background of my carving and she agreed to give it a try. She carved a buffalo calf laying in a nest (where else would a winged baby buffalo hang out?) and a small buffalo flying in the background.

After she returned the picture to me, I asked Clay Miller if he would like to add something to the project. He agreed, and drew up a Sheridan style corner pattern and carved it. Thanks Kathy and Clay for playing along. I think projects like this are pretty fun. So this is where the project stands now. The next step is to see if I can find someone interested in coloring it cuz I don't want to attempt it myself. If it gets finished in time, I'm thinking of offering for the raffle at the IFOLG show next fall in Albuquerque, NM.

Lesson #5, will be a bald eagle

2010-11-01T19:25:00.000-07:00

November is going to be a busy month. Deer season will take up the first three weekends, then our oldest son Dusty will be coming home for Thanksgiving. That won't leave any time for me to go to Billings so I went this past weekend to get started on the next lesson (even though I'm only half through with lesson #4). Jan decided to do a bald eagle for the next lesson. He did his first eagle back in 1996 before he had taken a class with Robb Barr. His first eagle was done with the plug embossing method that Al Stohlman taught. After Jan learned about leather dust and cutting the leather loose from the background, he could get a lot more 3-D effect. This lesson will teach how Jan creates feather texture along with embossing and coloring the eagle. Here's a photo of the eagle picture I created with Jan this weekend. There is still a little touch up work that needs to be done and a few things I'd do different on the next one, but I was really happy with the way it turned out.

Hot snot on a silver platter

2010-10-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

"One minute you're hot snot on a silver platter, the next minute you're a cold booger on a paper plate."

My son Jake made that comment in a conversation last weekend with Stacy and I.

The International Federation of Leather Guilds held their 44th annual show last weekend in St Louis, MO. I didn't get to go to the show this year. I have only had the chance to go to one of these shows, Denver in 2005. I've been sending pieces to the show each year since. This year I entered the grizzly bear picture that Jan taught me how to do last spring and the bugling elk that Kathy Flanagan and I did as a partnership project. Both of these projects took first place ribbons at the show and the bear also took a ribbon for best of category. After the show was over, my friend Kate Dubiel posted a message on Facebook saying "this week you're hot snot". Well if I was "hot snot" this week, I was in good company! Kate took a first place with her game board at the show. Kathy took a couple more ribbons in the masters class. Several other friends also took ribbons at the show. Paul and Rosa Zalesak of Leather Wranglers posted a bunch of pictures on Facebook from the show. Stacy and I are planning on being at the show next year in Albuquerque, NM.

Congratulations to everyone who was "hot snot" this week!

Brown Trout lesson is now available

2010-10-10T17:43:00.000-07:00

I wanted to let everyone here know that lesson #3 in the Sculptured Leather Art lesson series with Jan Schoonover is now available from the Badlands Leather Art website. This lesson is a little different than the first two. Instead of hairing techniques, this one will teach you how to create scales and fins. As in all the lessons in this series, each step will have complete instructions along with color photos to guide you from start to finish.

I've begun working on lesson #4 but haven't gotten very far yet. As I mentioned in a previous post, the next lesson will be a mountain lion. I'll try and have it finished by the middle of November.

A busy week off

2010-10-05T21:55:00.000-07:00

I had a week off of work, so I spent it catching up on some leather projects. First off, I spent 3 days in Billings with Jan working on lesson #4 in our series of extreme embossed projects. This lesson will cover carving, embossing and coloring a mountain lion. We had hoped that by taking 3 days to do this one, the pace would be a little easier. As it turned out, we ended up working till 9 Thursday and Friday and till 5 on Saturday. We had a little problem with our embossing putty the first day. We had heard that all the boot and saddlemakers were starting to switch over to Petronio's brand rubber cement because of it's strength and fast drying properties. We found out that when it's mixed with leather dust to make putty, it does dry very quickly on the surface, but once it forms a scab on top, it doesn't dry underneath. We waited 2 hours and the putty hadn't even started to dry in the middle. We ended up scraping all the putty out and mixing up a new batch using Barge brand rubber cement. Even with the set back, we ended up finishing up the project on schedule on Saturday.

I spent most of Sunday and Monday finishing up a pair of chinks that my son Jake took an order for. If we're going to do more of these, we really need to get a sewing machine that works for more than punching holes. It was my first time sewing an inlay into anything and my first time cutting fringe. Overall though, we were pretty happy with how they turned out. Good thing because we both have chaps started for ourselves that need to get finished up one of these days.

And finally, today I finished up the Brown trout lesson, #3 in the series. I'll send it off to Jan in the morning to let him check it out and see if there are any changes he wants made. Then as soon as I hear back from him, I'll get it to Kate and have her put it up on the website and make it available to those of you that have been waiting. Tomorrow it's back to work at my real job.

Latest addition to my leather art collection

2010-09-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

Over the last several years I’ve been building a collection of leather art from artist's whose work I admire. The latest addition to my collection is a piece from Paul Burnett. I’ve been a fan of Paul’s work for a long time. Paul is an amazing artist and teacher. He was the first recipient of the Al Stohlman award. You can see more of Paul’s work at the gallery section of his Painting Cow website. Paul does such a variety of different things with leather it’s hard to choose a favorite, but his eagle head might have to be my choice. The lessons Paul writes are some of the best instructional material you will find anywhere. On his website, you can sign up for his free lessons or order his detailed home study courses, publications, and kits. There is also a gift shop where you can purchase a variety of feather jewelry carved out of leather and colored to look real.

The piece that Paul created for me was based on a painting by Tom Beecham that was featured on a past cover of an Outdoor Life magazine. Paul carved and colored it with his usual amazing attention to detail. It’s a great piece of art and I am proud to have a piece of his work to add to my collection. THANKS Paul!

Some more new tools

2010-09-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I posted some pictures of the tooling on an old saddle that belonged to my great grandfather. I am planning on making a saddle similar to this one sometime (I really thought I'd have it started by now). When I mentioned that I would need some new tools to recreate the tooling designs, a couple of my friends offered to help me out. I showed pictures of the tools that Clay Miller sent to me in an earlier post. Another friend, Carl Breidenich said he would also like to see if he could make me the tools I needed. I met Carl on the internet a few years ago and we've helped each other fill in some missing spots in our Craftool collections. Carl also modifies tools to make new designs out of old tools. That's what he did for me. He took a couple Craftool stamping tools and changed the faces of the tools completely. The tools he made work really well. Thanks to my good friends, I've now got the tools I need to tool the designs on my saddle project. All I need now is some time!

Swivel knife holster

2010-09-15T06:43:00.000-07:00

Kathy Flanagan is a master leather artist and teacher from Conifer, Colorado. She has written several articles for the Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal most recently a mini series on how to carve horses. She has taught classes at the Sheridan and Wickenburg shows. She has also taught at many of the IFoLG shows, Tandy stores, and does numerous classes around Colorado. This fall at the federation show in St Louis, Kathy will be teaching a class on how to make a swivel knife holster. When I was in Rapid City with Kathy last month, she gave me one of these holsters that she is making and it's the coolest thing! The carving is great, the coloring is great, it even has my initials on it. Thanks Kathy for the great gift! Anyone heading to the St Louis show should consider taking Kathy's class. She's a great teacher and a fun person to hang out with.

A trip to the Black Hills

2010-08-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Stacy and I traveled down to South Dakota where I had been asked to help judge the leather craft at the Central States Fair with my good friend Kathy Flanagan. We arrived in Rapid City a little early so I got to do a little shopping at the Tandy store there and met the new manager. Then when Kathy and her daughter Sheena arrived, we headed straight over to the fair grounds for the judging. Just a couple years ago, there were 3 leather entries in the fair, this year there were 53. We spent the next several hours going over each item, trying to point out what was done well, what could use improvement, and deciding what ribbons each entry should receive. Sheena was a big help writing down all our comments. By the time we had finished, we were the only ones left in the room. It must be easier to judge wine and food :o) There was a lot of really nice leather work displayed in this show. The Dakota Territory Leather Guild should be proud of the job they did with this show.

We got to spend the rest of the weekend wandering around the Black Hills. Saturday morning we took a trip to Bear Country. Bear Country is always a fun place to go. I'm not sure there is anyplace you can see so many animals up close. It was close to 100 degrees there, even early in the morning so the animals weren't doing much but laying around and panting, but it was still fun to see them all.

In the afternoon, we ran back over to the fair for a little bit, then went to Hill City and took a ride on the 1880's train. The train runs from Hill City to Keystone and back and is a relaxing way to spend a few hours enjoying the scenery.

After the train ride, we made a quick trip through Needles Highway and Custer State Park. On our way through the park, we got to see a herd of big horn rams right beside the road.

We wanted to get to tunnels on Iron Mountain Road before dark. This is a really cool road with 3 tunnels and several cools bridges. The tunnels are located so that when you are driving through them, you can see Mt Rushmore through the tunnel.

We barely made it to the tunnels before dark, so we didn't get a chance to take any good pictures, but here's one from a previous trip. From here, we continued on to Mt Rushmore to see the faces on the mountain lighted up.

Then it was back to Rapid for a late supper. On Sunday, we drove the Nemo road through more of the beautiful Black Hills to Deadwood. We've been wanting to see Kevin Costner's Tatanka center for a couple years but never got through there when it was open. We spent a couple hours there learning about bison and the Lakota indians. They've got a HUGE statue of indians on horses chasing bison over a buffalo jump that is pretty awesome.

By the time we were through there, it was early afternoon and time for all of us to head for home. It was a fun trip just like all our trips to SD have been.

Gone Fishin

2010-08-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend "fishing" in Billings with Jan Schoonover. Not trying to catch them, but learning how to carve them. On this trip, we worked on a Brown Trout picture. I've never done an embossed fish before so this was new to me and it was a fun lesson. I learned some new techniques that will be in the next lesson in our series. Once again, it was a marathon session on Saturday getting the carving, texturing and embossing done. It's a pretty good challenge trying to keep up with Jan along with taking notes and pictures for the lesson, but somehow it always works out. I also had to make a quick run over to Montana Leather to pick up a few things. We called it a day around 7 on Saturday (a long day since I had to be up at 3:30 in the morning to get to Billings by 9). On Sunday we did the touch up work on the picture and Jan painted his fish. There is quite a bit of coloring involved in this project but Jan makes it look easy. I didn't color mine as I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything that needed to go into the lesson. I'll color mine when things slow down around here. This coming weekend, Stacy and I are headed to Rapid City where Kathy Flanagan and I are judging the leather work in the Central States Fair on Friday. Then we are going to just hang around in the Black Hills with Kathy for a couple days. That's going to be a lot of fun!

Here's a picture of Jan's completed trout.

And here is a picture of my trout, without any color yet. Stacy really likes the picture without any color so I will probably end up doing another one so I can have one colored, and one natural.

Jan and I talked about ways to try and get more feedback on the lessons we are putting out. We'd love to get comments, questions and pictures of people's projects. In order to encourage people to send us pictures of the projects they make from these lessons, we are thinking of having a contest. We haven't worked out the details yet, but what we are thinking of is picking one picture of a completed project from each lesson and that person will receive a free lesson. I'll post the details on this as soon as we work them out.

I'll try and have the Brown Trout lesson finished up by mid September. It looks like the next lesson on the list will be a mountain lion, and after that, possibly a buffalo. If things work out, we'd like to get both of those done yet this year.

Black Bear lesson with Jan Schoonover is now available

2010-07-31T15:18:00.000-07:00

The second lesson in the Sculptured Leather Art Lesson series with Jan Schoonover is now available on the Badlands Leather Art website. This lesson includes 40 pages of detailed instructions and 140 color photographs on carving, hairing, embossing and coloring the black bear.

We are now accepting checks or money orders as optional payment methods for those of you that don't care to use Pay Pal. We are also offering the lesson on DVD for people who would rather not have to download it. This should be helpful for people still using a dial up internet connection. The will be an additional $5 charge to get the lesson on DVD to cover additional costs including packaging and shipping.

I'd really like to get feedback on these lessons so that I can make future lessons as useful as possible. Let me know what you think! The next lesson in the series will be a brown trout. I'll head back to Billings in the next couple weeks to get started on it. I am planning on having it ready by the end of September.

Cleaning some things off my bench

2010-07-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

I've usually got several different things started on my carving bench at one time, and sometimes a couple in the refrigerator too. This weekend I decided to see if I could finish up a few things. The first was a cell phone case that my son wanted. We started on this last weekend. He wanted a phone case that would protect his phone at his new job. He's always got ideas of what he wants and what he doesn't want so it took us some brain storming to get his ideas into something we could actually build. This case gives the phone two layers of leather covering both the front and back of the phone. He didn't want a snap closure so we went through several ideas before coming up with kind of a slot and tab closure. This thing was not a lot of fun to sew up! The case should last a lot longer than most of his phones do.

The next project was to paint the bear from the last lesson with Jan. Jan said this one was quick and easy to paint. I had my doubts, but he was right. I like it a lot better than the first black bear I did with him. I may have to repaint that one too.
(I've tried and tried but I can't get a decent picture of this bear!)

And finally, I decided to finish up the antelope picture. I added some tall grass in the foreground, and did the backgrounding on the picture. I think they are both ready for frames now.

New tools for an old pattern

2010-07-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

In an older post, I showed some patterns off of an old saddle I am hoping to replicate. I mentioned that I didn't have some of the tools needed to stamp these patterns. A couple of my friends stepped up and offered to try and make some tools for me. I have some pretty neat friends!! Last Friday I received a package in the mail from Clay Miller, aka Bert. In it were three meander stamps that he had made. Clay acquired the tools that Billy Wooters used when he was making tools. When I asked Bert what I owed him, he told me "they are the first stamps I have ever made so if I become famous they could be priceless LOL..on the other hand if I make lots of them and no one buys them they will be worthless...LOL".

Judging by Bert's carving, and how he ran the Tandy store in Rapid City, I would bet on him making darn nice tools and I'm proud to have the first ones. Thanks Bert!!

Here's a practice piece I stamped up to see how they compared to the pattern on the old saddle. I like the look and I'm getting pretty excited to get started on this saddle. If there were only more days in the week!

Black bear lesson will be available soon

2010-07-19T20:53:00.000-07:00

I finished up writing the lesson on the black bear this weekend and mailed a copy of it to Jan today. If he doesn't find anything major that needs to be changed, the lesson should be available by the end of this week or early next week. I received some pretty good feedback from the people that purchased the first lesson and I really appreciate it. I also got some suggestions on what people would like to see changed or added to future lessons. The second lesson will include large pictures of what the project should look like at the end of each section. We really want these lessons to be as complete and easy to follow as possible so that anyone who purchases them will be able to follow them and end up with a project they are happy with. As soon as Jan gives me the okay, I'll get this one up on the website.

Figuring out tooling patterns

2010-07-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, I drag out parts of the old saddle I intend to try and replicate and try and figure out how the tooling on it was done. This saddle is probably around 80 years old or more, so the tooling on it is quite different than most modern day saddles. This weekend I was working on the skirts. The leather was old and dried up and the patterns were fairly hard to make out. I cleaned the parts up with lots of water and an old toothbrush (Jake was kind of worried it was his). Once most of the dirt and grime was off of them, I set them on a towel on the cement floor. I placed a heavy board over them and set severl 5 gallon containers of water on top of the board. Once they dried, they are fairly flat again. Then I applied a heavy coat of Skidmore's Leather Dressing on the parts to keep them pliable. Once they were flat and dry, the tooling patterns are a little easier to see. The top picture shows the border design around a lot of the saddle. I'm going to have to try and find a meander stamp similar to the one used here. I don't have anything like it. The second picture shows a flower design that was tooled into the center of the basket weave on the skirts. I think I've figured out how he did that.

The first step was to draw a circle with a pair of dividers. I then reset the divider and made another circle about 1/8 inch larger around the first circle. Next I used a small veiner and make a border inside the circle. The points where the veiner impressions come together are used as spacers for the next step.

A smooth veiner was used to create the flower petals. One tip of the veiner is set in the center of the other veiner impressions, the other tip of the veiner was aimed towards the center point of the flower. I went around the flower making each of the right side impressions first.

Then go back and make the left side impressions.

A stop tool was used where the impressions come together at the bottom.

A pear shader was used to give some depth to the petals and a flower center was stamped in the middle.

To finish it off, a border stamp was used around the outside of the border.

While I was working on the first pattern, I had an idea for a second flower. It might be fun to play with this and see how many other variations could be done.

Congratulations to Rex Cook

2010-07-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

On June 26, 2010, Rex Cook was inducted into the ND Cowboy Hall of Fame. Rex taught me how to build saddles a few years ago. He's spent all of his life working with cattle, horses and leather. Congratulations Rex!

To read more about what's new at the ND Cowboy Hall of Fame, check out the Cowboy Chronicle

REX COOK

Born on his parents homestead north of Sentinel Butte in 1928, Rex Cook has come to personify the quintessential “renaissance man”. He broke his first horse at the age of 12 and bought a little bit of ranch land when he was just 14, while working for his neighbor. After graduating high school, he started teaching with an emergency teaching certificate at the Goldsberry country school, situated 45 miles north of Medora.

He entered in the calf-roping and wild horse race contests in his first rodeo that same year—and also announced the rodeo! The course was set: he’d divide his time between rodeo arenas and corrals and schoolhouses. To pay his way through college, he mastered the art of saddle-making. To date, he’s created over 100 saddles and was honored to demonstrate his craft on the state capitol grounds during the 1989 centennial celebration.

After a stint in the Marine Corps Reserve and a hitch with the U.S. Army in Japan, Cook returned to Dickinson and began a career within the Dickinson Public Schools. He also spent a stint as manager of the Dik-ota Clay Products Company.

All the while, he maintained a steady interest in horsemanship and rodeos. He rode, trained and sold cutting horses and promoted team roping as a rodeo event. Along with Tex Appledoorn, he produced the1958-59 ND Team Roping Championship in Belfield. Merle Aus and Jim Jefferies were two of his team-roping partners.

His knowledge and expertise were conveyed to scores of Dickinson State College students during the 20 years he taught horsemanship classes. Cook also traveled to the Iowa State Fair to co-teach horse training clinics. He judged countless horse shows throughout the tri-state area and as far away as North Carolina.

Cook is a member of the North Dakota and National Cutting Horse associations, and is a past member of the NDRA, AQHA, U.S. Team Roping Association and Wrangler Roping Association. During the 2007 Dickinson’s Roughrider Days Rodeo, Cook was presented with the Rodeo-Rancher of the Year Award.

At present, he serves on the boards of the North Dakota Council on the Arts and the Theodore Roosevelt Nature & History Association. He and his wife, Ann, also an educator, raised two children and continue to reside in Dickinson.

In the Arts and Entertainment Division, two were nominated, one was selected.

Carving pattern for next saddle

2010-07-02T21:12:00.000-07:00

This picture shows the seat from the old saddle I am going to try and replicate. The saddle had sat in an old garage here on the ranch for as long as I can remember. It was in really bad shape, leather all dried out and chewed on by rodents, part missing, etc. I took it all apart and started cleaning up the pieces, hoping to be able to get some carving patterns off of them. I started with the seat. I soaked it down really well, then worked in saddle soap and scrubbed it with an old toothbrush. It actually cleaned up well enough to see the tooling fairly well.

I didn't know how easy it would be to copy the carving pattern off of the old leather, but someone suggested trying to do a rubbing. I had my doubts, but it worked fairly well. The pattern showed up in the rubbing very faintly, but by putting it on my light box, I could trace over the lines.

The pattern has quite large flowers and leaves seen on many older style saddles. One of the things I found interesting on this old pattern is the double line border on the flowers. There is also some interesting use of tools on the carving that I will try and replicate when I carve the new parts. I'll post more patterns as I get them copied off the old leather.

Chap tops with color

2010-06-30T22:21:00.000-07:00

Here's something new I started working on over the weekend. Jake was making a pair of chaps and while I was going through patterns and sides of chap leather, I decided to work on a pair myself. It was kind of fun to get back to carving something that I am really comfortable doing, carving oak leaves. The oak leaf/basketweave pattern is similar to one I used on one of my saddles. Just for something different, I decided to add some fall colors to the leaves.

I colored the leaves with Tandy's eco flow dyes. I really like how these dyes work and how easily the colors blend. I also used them for the background. As soon as I was done with the coloring, I oiled the whole piece with neatsfoot oil. That was a little scary as I didn't know how the oil would work with the dye, but it was fine. After letting the oil soak in for about an hour, I added a couple coats of Neat Lac as a sealer. Let that dry for about 10 minutes and then added a coat of Fiebing's medium brown antique paste. Then for a final finish, a coat of Tan Kote. I know most people would have taken a lot more time to do the coloring process, but I get really impatient when it comes to the coloring. The results were pretty much what I had in mind when I started, so I was pretty happy. The fun part for me is done. Not sure when I'll get around to sewing them up.

Black bear for Lesson #2

2010-06-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

Here's Jan's completed black bear from last weekend. This is a bear pattern that Jan first did back in 1999 and entered in the IFOLG show in Denver where it took best of show. When things slow down around here, I'll start working on writing up the lesson. It's amazing how fast Jan can get one of these projects finished in the marathon sessions we do for these lessons. We worked close to 12 hours on the bear on Saturday, then finished up the embossing Sunday morning. Jan colored his in the afternoon. I just watched, asked questions, and took a lot of notes and pictures of the coloring process. I'll probably write up the lesson before I do the coloring on mine.

It's been a long week! Monday night it rained a LOT!! We started to get some water in the basement and ended up spending most of the night trying to clean up the mess. Finally got to bed around 4:30 AM and was back up at 6:30 to head to town for a new sump pump. After a full day at work, Stacy and I went out for her birthday supper in town. That was the best part of the day! I still don't think we've caught up on our sleep.

Jan wanted me to let everyone know that he's available to teach lessons one on one in his home in Billings, MT or he'll travel to teach classes. If he has to travel very far, he needs a minimum of 10 students and a 2 days class will run about $185 per person.

Tornado in Billings

2010-06-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend in Billings with Jan Schoonover, working on a black bear project for the next lesson in our series. We finished up around 3:30 and then I had to do some quick shopping before I headed for home. Once that was done, I went to fill the car up with gas. As I was going into the station, a man sitting outside asked me if I had been watching those clouds. He said he was pretty sure they were going to turn into a tornado. By the time I came back out, the storm sirens were going off. Most of the clouds were off to the west and I was headed east so I decided to take off. I called Stacy and was telling her about the strange clouds when a funnel cloud dropped out of the sky. It was off to the north of the interstate maybe a half mile. Most of the cars and trucks on the road were pulling over to watch and take pictures. I decided to just keep going. I could see the funnel cloud for a few miles as I was driving, but I couldn't tell that it had touched down. I stayed ahead of the storm most of the way home, but passed through several bouts of heavy rain and lightning. When I got back to Belfield, my daughter was at the gas station and she told me it was a good thing I had left when I did because a tornado had gone through Billings. That's when I first learned that it had caused some major damage. When I got home, Stacy showed me several videos on the computer people had taken of the storm and the wreckage. The Metra park where most of the damage was done isn't all that far from where Jan and Alice live. I just got off the phone with Jan and he said they didn't receive any damage, but did get 2 1/2 inches of rain and some small hail. Thankfully, there were no reports of serious injuries. You can see more about the storm that went through Billings here.

I'll make another post soon on the black bear project Jan and I worked on while I was there.

Finally finished painting my antelope

2010-06-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

Since I didn't go to Billings last weekend to start the bear lesson, I took some time to finish up the painting on the antelope we did for the first lesson. It seems like I really need to be in the mood to paint if I want it to turn out. I had done some painting on it before, but felt the shading needed more work. I decided to use some of the tips Jan had given me when we painted the grizzly, and I felt like they really worked well in this. The tips were fairly simple, darker shades in the shadows and lighter shades for the highlights give more depth and shape to a painted project. I am pretty happy with how this turned out. I haven't sealed the picture yet as I still think I'd like to add some background scenery to the picture, but I haven't decided what yet. Here's how it looks now.

Lesson #2 postponed

2010-06-05T19:43:00.001-07:00

I was supposed to be in Billings this weekend working on the black bear lesson with Jan, but he called last night to tell me he had taken a fall and broke a rib. He was in quite a bit of pain but in good spirits. He asked if we could put off starting the lesson until next week or the week after. He is very disappointed in having to put it off, but I think everyone will understand. Next weekend is Stacy and my anniversary and we were planning to do something together to celebrate but we aren't sure exactly what yet. So right now the plan is to start the bear lesson on the weekend of the 19th and 20th. The week after that Jan is headed to Pennsylvania to teach a class on embossing a wolf head.

After spending a couple days crawling around on rafters this week, I was looking forward to a weekend of sitting safely in front of a bench pounding on leather. I guess I never thought much about how falling down in your shop could break a bone too. Still, it's not nearly as scary as balancing on a 2x4, swinging a hammer at a nail while staring at the ground 30 feet below.

Being I was home for the weekend, Jake and I worked with the young horses again today. We rode them both in a bigger pen and they are coming along really well. They learn quickly and seem to enjoy being ridden. We're planning on another session tomorrow. The weather has been almost perfect here this past week for being outside. We are thinking of a taking a hike tomorrow morning to take some pictures in the badlands. I'm not sure when the last time was that they have been so green. We might do a little work on our saddles tomorrow too if we have some time.

Not a lot of time for leather working

2010-05-31T19:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything new on here in a while. It's been kind of busy here at our house the last few weeks. My son Jake graduated from high school a little over a week ago. A lot of my family came up to attend graduation and spend a little time with us. My oldest son Dusty was here for 2 weeks. It was great having him home again. We haven't seen him very many times since he moved to Salt Lake City where he's been living and working the last couple years. My parents, my sister and my younger brother and his kids were also here for a few days. It was nice to see all of them too!

Our weather has finally gotten nice which brings yard work along with it. I haven't been doing much in the way of leather work, but I did manage to make Dusty a plain black belt while he was here, and since the first one ended up being a little too small, Jake now has one too :o) The are both talking about wanting ranger style belts too, so there may be some more belts to make. We haven't gotten very much farther on the saddle projects either. We did cut out Jake's stirrup leathers (again). We realized after cutting the first ones that they should have been longer if he wants them laced instead of having buckles. They are now hanging from the basement ceiling with weights to take the stretch out of them.

We did finally get a chance to start working with our new horses. On Sunday evening we got on both Biscuit and Buttercup for the first time and were pleasantly surprised at how well that went. No rodeo!! They both seem to be pretty quick learners. Jake took a few pictures while I was saddling the horses and a couple close ups that I asked him to take.

One that turned out really neat was a close up of an eye. You can actually see him taking the picture in the reflection, along with some of the corral in the background. I'm thinking that will go into the "someday I might have to try this on leather" file. It might be a while cuz that list is getting pretty long. I'll also be starting on a new lesson with Jan Schoonover pretty soon. This one will be a black bear. I've done that one before, so the class will be a nice refresher for me, and I can really concentrate on getting pictures and notes taken. We sold a few of the antelope lessons and the people that have bought them seemed really pleased. I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of their projects using the lessons.

Sculptured Leather Art Lesson #1 now available

2010-05-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

I'd like to announce it here first. The first lesson in the Sculptured Leather Art series is now available on my website. This lesson will teach you Jan Schoonover's techniques on how to carve, emboss and color a pronghorn antelope. The lesson includes a tracing pattern, list of materials and tools needed, and complete instructions with text and color pictures (over 120 of them!).

These lessons will be in the form of PDF files, downloadable to your computer. Cost for the lessons in this series will be $25 USD and payment can be made through Paypal. I'd really appreciate feedback on these lessons from anyone that purchases them. I also welcome any questions you might have.

We'll start working on the second lesson in the series in early June and plan on having it available around July 15th. Lesson #2 will be on a black bear.

For those of you attending the Rocky Mountain Leather Trade show this week in Sheridan, Jan will have a printed copy of the lesson at his booth available for viewing. I've made a few revisions since he got his copy, but it will still give you a pretty good idea of what is contained in the lessons.

Rex Cook nominated for ND Cowboy Hall of Fame

2010-05-11T16:49:00.000-07:00

I just found out that Rex Cook, who taught me how to build saddles, has been nominated for induction to the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in the Leaders of Ranching and Rodeo Division. Nominees selected will be inducted into the hall of fame June 26th, 2010.

You can read more about the nominees at the ND Cowboy Hall of Fame website. There was also an article about Rex's nomination on page 5 of the May issue of the Prairie Arts Newsletter

Congratulations Rex on your nomination and good luck in the selection process!!

Coming soon!

2010-05-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

Back in the middle of April, I went to Billings and took a class with Jan Schoonover on how to create an embossed pronghorn antelope. I had taken this same class a few years ago, but this time we had an agenda. Jan and I are going to put together a series of lessons geared at teaching the techniques he has developed over the years to create his extreme embossed leather pictures.

Since taking that class, I have been working at writing up the first lesson in the series. For some reason, I was having some trouble getting started on this one. Last weekend I decided to try it the way I've written lessons in the past. I started carving a new antelope project and just wrote as I was going. It didn't take long to get into the swing of it, and I got past the writers block I was having. Thursday it rained and snowed all day and Friday it snowed on and off, so I had both days off from work. I spent then both days working on the lesson, and it's just about finished. It just needs a little more proof reading by new eyes to pick out any errors I might have made. I printed out a copy of what it looks like right now and mailed it to Jan. He wanted to have a copy to show people in his booth in Sheridan in a couple weeks. Our plans right now are to make these lessons available as PDF files downloadable off the internet. To keep the cost down, we'd like to not have to print them out, but I haven't ruled that out completely yet. As soon as we get things set up on my website to start selling the lessons, I'll make an announcement. Hopefully it wont be too far in the future. Once we get things going, we'd like to be able to offer a new lesson every 6-8 weeks. It'll mean a lot of trips to Billings for me in the next couple of years, but it's a project I'm really excited to be part of.

Each lesson will contain fully illustrated instructions for completing a new project. The first lesson has 32 pages of instructions that cover the tooling, hairing, embossing and coloring processes, including over 120 color photographs. Hopefully I didn't leave anything out :o)

Saddle trees arrived, and what's new.

2010-05-03T06:44:00.000-07:00

Our saddle trees arrived Saturday from Rod and Denise Nikkel. They look great. I'm excited to get started on them, but not as excited as Jake is. He started on his Sunday afternoon! I've got a dozen things to finish up before I can get started on mine and there just isn't enough time in a day.

We started working on a new building last week and it's a lot closer to home. I wont miss the 3 hour a day drive that we have been doing since last fall. That should give me some more time to get things done. The lady we are working for now had to horses in the corral that she decided Jake could have, so add more things to the to-do list. Both horses are 3 year olds and just halter broke. If it's nice out on Sunday, we'll probably have a rodeo here!

I've been writing up a lesson on the antelope class that I took a few weeks ago with Jan Schoonover. I'd really like to get this finished up, but it's taking longer than I expected it to. I didn't realize how many pictures I took at this class, but I didn't want to leave anything out. Jan would like to have a copy of the lesson available to show people at his booth in Sheridan. Kate Dubiel is helping me re-do my website and add some features so that we can offer the lesson (and future ones) for sale as downloadable PDF files. I still haven't finished the coloring on my antelope from the class, and I started carving another one as I was writing the lesson to help me get past some issues I was having with writer's block. I have a partially finished bear that could use a lot more attention too!!!

My grizzly bear and elk arrived home from the show in Indiana. I was kind of nervous to see what he looked like after his trip, but the damage wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting. The scratches are pretty minor and I think I can fix them up pretty easily. The best of show trophy that Roz made is really neat. I'll have to take a picture of it one of these days. Roz comes up with some of the most imaginative ideas I've ever seen.

We'll that's it for this update. Have a great week everyone.

Toolers of the Cowibbean

2010-04-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

The Calumet Area Leather Guild held the annual spring show this past weekend in Michigan City, Indiana. I entered a couple of my leather projects in the show. One was the bugling elk that I carved and Kathy Flanagan painted. It took first place in the partnership class in the masters division of the show.

My other entry was my grizzly bear. When I mailed the pictures to the show, the bear ended up falling out of the frame and getting scratched up. I was going to pull it out of the competition but Brent Howard (president of the CALG) really wanted it in the show, scratches and all. It ended up taking first place, best of catagory and best of show in the advanced division. I owe Brent a BIG thank you for insisting that I allow it in the show. This is my first ever best of show and I'm pretty happy!

The little pirate statue is the best of show trophy and was made by Roz "the dragon lady" Kaohn. Roz has her very own style when it comes to leather art and she comes up with the most unique ideas.

Oh give me a home....

2010-04-25T21:18:00.000-07:00

Where the buffalo roam

Where the deer.....

and the antelope play....

Stacy and I spent the morning in Custer State Park in South Dakota today. We went out really early, before it clouded up and started to snow. The animals must have known something was coming and they were out every where we went.

I think this bighorn sheep ewe would have crawled right in the car with Stacy if we'd have opened the door.

Ups and downs

2010-04-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

In the past few days there's been some really good stuff going on, and some not so great stuff. Saturday morning the alarm went off at 4:30 (not so good) but it was the start of another trip to Billings for another class with Jan Schoonover. It was a beautiful day for a 300 mile drive across North Dakota and Montana. When I left home, I could just make out the shapes of a herd of mule deer grazing in our hayfields. By the time I got to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, it was light enough to see several large herds of buffalo and elk grazing close to the interstate. I stopped to take a few pictures, but they didn't turn out all that great. After I got going again, there were more elk in a draw that would have made really great pictures, but I figured I couldn't stop every half mile or I'd never get there. There were also wild horses, deer and turkeys out grazing on the new shoots of green grass that are just starting to grow. Made getting up that early feel a little more worth it. The farther west I went, the greener it got. Montana is just pretty most any time I drive through it with all it's different landscapes, river bottoms, badlands, rim rock hills, the foot hills of the mountains off in the distance. Another really nice thing about Montana, there wasn't any wind. I'm surprised North Dakota hasn't blown right off the map these past couple weeks!

I arrived at Jan's house around 10:30 in the morning. Our project for the weekend was a pronghorn antelope. I've done an antelope with Jan before, but we are working on a project together and this is the first step. I was busy taking pictures and notes AND trying to keep up, but kept falling behind. We ended up working until about 8:30 Saturday evening. We got all the carving, hairing and most of the embossing embossing finished up.

Here's how my antelope looked at the end of the first day. On Sunday we finished up the putty in the scars and behind the horns, did some touch up work and painted our antelope. Well, Jan painted his and I watched, taking lots of pictures and notes. I always fall behind during the painting so I wanted to just watch what he was doing. When he was finished, he said "now it's your turn". I did start on mine, but I kept noticing there were some things about my antelope I didn't like so Jan showed me how to fix them. That's the really nice part about a class like that. Jan has done so many of these, he knows how to fix most any mistake. I'll try and get my painting finished one of these days.

Here's what Jan's antelope looks like finished, and mine not finished :o)

Last time I was at Jan's, he tried to sell me a picture he had done a couple years ago of two wolves. It's a really nice picture. Stacy and I both like it a lot, but it was a large picture and we just don't have a place for it. So this time when I was there, Jan offered to sell me a smaller version of the same picture. This is one he did back in 1997 and had hanging in his workshop. So now I have a new addition to my collection.

So all of that went pretty well. Then I get an email from Brent Howard last night telling me my grizzly bear didn't fare so well on his trip to the show in Indiana this coming weekend. I've had a pretty sick feeling in my stomach ever since. I thought I had it packed well enough to withstand anything the post office could throw at it, but I guess I underestimated them. Somehow the picture came loose from the frame and the nails on the back of the frame scratched up the front of the picture. Brent sent me some pictures of it, and it's not terrible, but it's not good either. Hopefully I'll be able fix it again when it gets back home.

Okay, that's it for now.

Why buy real leather?

2010-04-11T18:31:00.001-07:00

I know, it doesn't look all that great anymore, but I made this belt around 1980. It was the first ranger style belt I ever made. I never cared for the tooling pattern that much, and the buckle really doesn't fit, but I've been wearing it as an everyday work belt for the last 20 years or so in all the elements that mother nature can throw at it. The tooling is just about worn off in places and a couple of the stitches holding the billets on wore through about a year ago, but it still does it's job just fine. I gave it a coat of Skidmore's Leather Dressing yesterday and replaced the stitching on the billets and it's probably got several more years in it. How many of those $5 belts from Wally World are gonna hold up like that?

They're all grown up!

2010-04-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

Last night was the high school prom. It's hard to believe my kids are all grown up. Jake will be graduating in about a month, Jessi is a junior. Dusty will be 22 next month and just moved into his very own apartment in Salt Lake City. All three of them are really great kids and we couldn't be prouder of them!

It's getting green in ND

2010-04-10T17:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not as green outside yet in ND as some things are here in the leather shop. Bonnie asked how my little horsey project was going a few days ago. I found my last attempt at it on my bench today buried under some other stuff. I didn't realize I had left it there in a plastic bag. OOPS!! It sure is a pretty shade of green. This is the second time that has happened on this project. I guess next time I start on it, I need to stick with it until I'm done. I am going to give it (at least) one more try. I'm just not ready to admit to Silva that this is out of my league yet. Hint to self, when you put it in a plastic bag, put it in the fridge!!

Back in the shop

2010-04-03T07:28:00.001-07:00

Well I finally made it back into the leather shop. It's been about 3 weeks since I got home from Billings and today was the first day I've had the time and the ambition to work on something. I cut out a piece of leather so that I could start on another grizzly bear. I want to do another one on my own to see if I remember what Jan taught me. I've got lots of pictures and some notes to follow. I got the pattern traced, cut, beveled and over half of the hairing done and it's all coming back to me fairly well. I am seeing places where I could have taken better notes, so I'll be adding to them as I go. Hoping to get a little more done today unless I decide to go for a ride with Jake, or a drive with Stacy. Looks like it's going to be another really pretty spring day outside.

I had a message from Denise Nikkel a few days ago giving me a progress report on my saddle tree order. Rod had them done "in the wood" and they were getting coats of varnish. It sounded like the rawhiding might get started this weekend. Rod and Denise have been really great to work with. Rod called me when I placed my order and went over everything to make sure we were both on the same page. That helped me out quite a bit since this is the first custom tree order I've ever made. Rod seems like a really nice guy and we talked about a lot of things besides the saddle trees. It was interesting to learn a little about his background and where they live up in Canada. Then once they actually started working on the trees, Denise called me one day to talk about some changes. There were some things that they thought might not look quite right trying to replicate a really old style tree to fit on a more modern horse. They had some ideas as to how to fix this problem and wanted to make sure I was okay with the changes. Having that communication going encourages me that this project is going to turn out really well. It was fun talking to Denise too. We've known each other for a couple years through the forum on Leatherworker.net, but this was the first time we've actually talked, and we talked about a lot of things. Rod and Denise are going to have a booth this year at the Rocky Mountain Leather Trade Show in Sheridan. I wont be able to make the show this year because Jake is graduating from high school that weekend, but I hope some time in the future I get the chance to meet them in person. Check out their website, rodnikkel.com .

And while I'm plugging websites, check out my friend Kate Dubiel's new business website, Studio 2-Dawgs. Kate's website design business is a year old now (but her experience is a lot longer than that!), and she's finally had time to get her own website up and running.

Okay, time to go see how the bear is doing. Happy Easter everyone!

Conversation with Bob Beard

2010-04-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

I called Bob Beard Monday evening to order some tools that I'm going to need sometime in the future. Bob makes (in my opinion) the nicest leather tools you can get anywhere. I first met Bob when I took a class with him the first time I went to the show in Sheridan. I really like Bob's style of leather carving, and his classes are a lot of fun. Even if he didn't teach anything, it's worth going, just to hear all Bob's stories.
Bob just returned home from the 3rd annual extreme leather workshop. He's got quite a busy travel schedule planned for the coming year. That's part of the reason that he's about 13 months out on new tool orders.
Bob is going to be headed to the spring show in Michigan City, Indiana. Then he'll be off to the Rocky Mountain Leather Trade Show in Sheridan, WY in May. This summer he plans to do classes in LA and Washington. Later this fall Bob will be headed to the International Federation of Leather Guilds show in St Louis, MO and the Boot and Saddle Makers Roundup in Wichita Falls, TX. If you get a chance to make it to any of these events, be sure to stop by and see Bob.

During our conversation, Bob informed me that Rhea Trevino of Trevino Leathers in the Black Hills of SD had passed away last week. Stacy and I met Rhea last spring at the show in Sherdian. Rhea was a really nice guy and we spent most of an hour talking to him. He was wearing one of the really cool vests that he made at his shop. It was sad to hear that Rhea is gone, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Check out Bob Beard's website, robertbeardtools.com for examples of his work, info on classes he teaches, lessons, 0r to find out more about the great leather carving tools he makes.

Inspiration comes in strange ways

2010-03-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

You never know where inspiration for a leather project will come from. I had the day off today and instead of doing something productive, I was laying on the couch feeling crappy with the cold I've had all week. We've got a strange cat that thinks when I'm watching Criminal Minds on TV, I should also be playing fetch with her. She jumps up on the back of the couch and drops her little pink stuffed mouse on my lap. Then she waits for me to throw it, watches where it lands, crouches down, and when she's ready she flies across the room to retrieve it. Maybe she thinks if she acts like a dog, I'll like her more.

One time when I looked up at the cat, I noticed something really interesting. We've got a print by Nancy Glazier on the wall over the couch next to one of my deer mounts. When I looked up at the picture, there was a reflection of the deer showing in the corner of the print.

I've always thought that an elk scene similar to the one on Nancy's print would look neat on leather. I've also always wanted to do another shadow box scene similar to the one I created with some pictures I took in Rocky Mountain National Park a few years ago.

Seeing that reflection in the picture on the wall started the wheels turning in my head and now there is another project that needs to be added to the list of things I want to do someday. A shadow box picture with a mule deer buck gazing down on a group of elk grazing below. I'm not sure how it'll all come together yet, but the process has started.

Life after leather class

2010-03-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, I need to figure out a way to be a professional leather class taker. Carving a bear, or carving pretty much anything for that matter, is way more fun that hanging sheet rock. After two weeks off from work, hauling 12 foot sheets of sheet rock down stairs and hanging it on a ceiling really kicked my butt!! I'm glad we finished up that part of our job this week, but I bet putting siding on isn't going to be a whole lot more fun.

So, can a person be a professional leather class taker?? I don't know, but I've got something in the works that might at least make it possible to do it part time, and maybe even make some money doing it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed hoping this works out. Who knows where it could lead.

When I was at Jan's he asked if I knew where he could get big marbles. He uses large marbles to help with the embossing part of his projects. We couldn't find them at Hobby Lobby or the other art supply stores so I did a search on the internet. I came up with a place called Rainbow Turtle that carries all sizes of marbles up to 2 inches. (or up to over 10 inches if you need a crystal ball!) I ordered some 1 3/8 and 1 5/8 inch marbles last weekend and the arrived in just a few days. If you're looking for large marbles, check them out.

I've got to get busy and get all my stuff in order so I can get my taxes done this week. I should have gotten it done this weekend, but I spent a lazy weekend with Stacy. Guess I'll have to do it one of these evenings. Once that's out of the way, I can get back to working on some leather projects. I've got lots of ideas on my ever growing list.

Upcoming classes with Jan Schoonover

2010-03-14T22:02:00.000-07:00

As any of you that follow my blog know, I just spent a couple weeks with Jan. He's got a few classes coming up and I'd like to plug them here.

In Sheridan and the Rocky Mountain Leather Trade Show, Jan will be teaching a class on carving, embossing and coloring a Boston Bull Terrier on May 18-19, 8am to 5 pm.

On Thursday, May 20th, Jan will be teaching a class on hairing techniques from 8 am to 12 noon. From 1 pm to 5 pm he'll be teaching a class on painting leather with acrylics. In this class Jan wants to teach how to mix different colors using the primary colors and how to blend colors when painting. This sounds like a very interesting class and I wish I was going to be there to take it. For more info on these classes, or to sign up for them go the Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal website.

Then in June, Jan is planning to head to the Pittsburgh, PA area to teach a class on either a wolf or a bear on the 26th and 27th. Approximate cost for the class is $200. For more info on this class, you can contact Chris Kearns at ckearns109@yahoo.com.

A title for the bear picture

2010-03-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

I normally have a difficult time naming my pictures and most of them just go un-named.
Today Jake found a saying that I think is appropriate for the griz. "You can run, but you'll just die tired!". I am thinking of getting a small plate engraved with that saying and attaching it to the picture. Yeah it's kind of silly, but I like the idea.

Home again, home again......

2010-03-13T17:45:00.000-08:00

We finished our bear project early yesterday afternoon. All that was left was a little touch up on the painting, a bit of plastic surgery on his top lip (actually it was leather putty), an application of spray sealer, and then coating the eyes with glaze. It was kind of nice to have the time for Jan to show me how changes could be made to fix some minor details. When he showed me that I could take a pear shader and a mallet to change the shape on one of the bear's cheeks, I was a little nervous. But it mashed down fairly easily and a little picking of the hair and you couldn't even tell.

I made a trip over to Cabella's in the afternoon because I had some time to kill. Jan and Alice invited me to a pot luck dinner at his church before I left town. While I was there, they told me that they had noticed I had a head light out on my car when I was following them over there. When I left home, I called Stacy to let her know about when I would be home. I told her to tell Jake I was going to be mad if I got a ticket on my way home (it was his car I borrowed). It wasn't more than 10 minutes later that I saw a car turn around on the interstate and start following me. I was sure I was going to get pulled over and it wasn't long before the blue lights came on. The officer walked up to the car, looked in the window and said "good evening, I'm trooper XXXXXXXX." (I'm terrible with names) Then all of a sudden he said "WOW, that's a cool bear!" I had the bear on the front seat beside me. The car was packed to the top. He spent the next five minutes talking about my bear project and finally he said, "oh, by the way, you've got a headlight out". He just gave me a warning and sent me on my way. Other than one deer that almost ran into the side of the car, the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful and I got home around midnight. It's sure nice to be back home again, even if it seems we live in the land of perpetual winter and fog.

Jan and I made plans for a new project together that I think some of you will be interested in. I'll let you in on more details when we get farther along on it. It means I may be making several more trips to Billings later this year, but they wont last nearly as long.

Here the last set of pictures of my bear project (I promise!)

Day #11, Color!!

2010-03-11T17:12:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited, I colored my bear and I didn't ruin him!! I don't think I even realized till I was finished how much stress this was causing me. Jan gave me a bunch of pointers, I used one of my new hog bristle brushes, and I actually enjoyed painting! I could apply color to the tips of the hair while still allowing the leather to show through. I could blend without making mud. I learned how the right shadows and highlights can really accent the carving.

I decided to change the top lip a little this afternoon and I'll finish that up tomorrow. I still need to decide if I am going to add any decorative accents to the piece (I am leaning towards not). Then we will do the backgrounding, apply a sealer, and finally varnish the eyes. I think those last steps will really bring him to life.

It's been really fun and I'm so glad I had this opportunity, but I'm sure looking forward to going home tomorrow night too!

Here he is with some color.

Day #10, starting to paint

2010-03-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

I brought my bear back to the motel with me last night and finished separating all the hair with a scalpel so I was a little ahead of Jan this morning. When he caught up, we started applying the Drake's X-1 as a stiffener. Once that's applied, the hair can be sort of shaped and when the sealer dries, it will stay that way. Here's a picture after all the hair has been lifted and shaped. It's funny, the hair doesn't look nearly that "clumpy" in real life. The hair on mine is longer than on Jan's. I have never liked it when I tried long hair before, but I got way behind when we started and was trying to catch up so I made it longer (less cutting). Jan said he actually liked the long hair better, that it looked like a winter coat.

Then this afternoon we started on the painting. We started with the shadowing. Jan is really fast with this part, I was standing there with my mouth open thinking "wait for me!!!!". I watched how he did his, then I tried to do something that sort of resembled what he was doing. One thing I found out was that I have been trying to paint hair like this with the wrong kind of brush. Jan told me to get some stiffer brushes, he suggested hog bristle. It seemed like they did a lot better job of applying paint to the tips of the hair but allowing you to still see some leather underneath. Sometimes when Jan concentrates really hard for a long time, his hands start to get shaky so we quit a few minutes early. Heck, my hands were shaky just cuz I was scared I'd mess up! Well, here's how it looked when I left. I got some different brushes so hopefully I can do a decent job of painting tomorrow.

Day #9 on the grizzly

2010-03-09T20:44:00.000-08:00

We're pretty much on track with where Jan wanted to be on the bear right now. Jan was hoping to start coloring on Wednesday and it looks like we should. Today we added some bear tracks to the side of the picture, just for an added touch. Then we finished up the putty that shaped the chin and bottom jaw. We also filled in all the scars where the leather was cut loose from the background. Then most of the rest of the day was spent adding hair texture to the puttied areas. We were going to add a stiffener to the hair so that we could start coloring in the morning, but Jan decided he'd rather wait to start that when we could keep at it until we were finished. So instead, we spent the rest of the day using a scalpel to slice all the hair into individual hairs instead of clumps. I'm getting really excited to see what this is going to look like when it's finished.

Here's a what he looks like tonight.

Grizzly class, week 2

2010-03-09T06:33:00.001-08:00

Well, it's the start of week #2 on the grizzly bear with Jan. It's starting to really progress. On Monday we finished up the final stretching and filling that gives the bear his depth. Jan ended up at just a hair under 5 inches and I ended up just a hair over 4 1/2. I'm pretty happy with that. I know what I could have done to get a little more stretch and can work on that when I do another one. We started to paint some in the bear's mouth as that needed to be done before we mounted the picture on to it's backing board. Today we'll work on finishing up the hair texture on the puttied areas, and on lifting and shaping all the rest of the hair. This is something I have some experience with so I think it will be a little easier on me mentally. Here's what my bear looks like now.

I also ran over to Montana Leather yesterday at noon and stocked up on some things I'll need to do my other big project for the year, teaching Jake how to make a saddle (and making one myself) . I picked up 5 sides of saddle skirting and a can of Barge cement. That worked out well as shipping this stuff wouldn't have been cheap. I also got a couple different kinds of rubber cement to try. This bear project takes a whole gallon of rubber cement to complete and I'd like to try another when I get home. Jan always suggests doing that as a way to reinforce what he has taught, and though I normally don't do it, this time I think I need too.

Weekend

2010-03-08T05:49:00.000-08:00

Stacy came over to Billings to visit me for the weekend so I didn't feel like wasting any of our time together writing on here. This is the longest time I've ever been away from home and while this class is something I really want to do, it's hard being away from my family. Having Stacy visit was really nice. We did a little shopping, ate out a couple times, and yesterday morning we took a little trip to Pictograph Cave State Park. It was a really small park a few miles out of Billings. There are 3 small caves, one of which has a few visible paintings on the back wall. There was a walking trail around the site and the weather was wonderful so we had a nice morning walk. I bet it's even nicer when everything is green. The "sound effects" we a little scary as there must be a rifle range (or artillery range) nearby but I think we'll have to go back there next time we visit Billings.

Jan and I still got together on Saturday and Sunday afternoon for a couple hours. We worked on more stretching and shaping of the face. Yesterday Jan had his bear out to 4 7/8ths inches and mine was out about 4 3/8ths. He'd like to go just a little bit farther, but we ran out of rubber cement to mix up putty. Jan will pick up another can at Montana Leather this morning and we'll do the final push. We've still got a lot of work to do this week, but Jan is pretty sure we'll get it finished by the weekend. He commented that he was pretty sure I'd do a nice job on my bear, but that he didn't expect it to look as good as it does so it sounds like I'm doing well :o)

Day #4 on the grizzly

2010-03-04T20:55:00.000-08:00

Day four was another good day on the bear project. The face is starting to really take shape. The nose and cheeks are pretty much shaped and we started on the bottom jaw. I am really impressed at how much attention Jan pays to the tiny details. He spent quite a bit of time today adjusting things so that the top and bottom teeth line up perfectly, even though they wont be together when the project is finished.

It's also neat to see how closely the leather putty can be made to look like real leather. Once the hair is cut into the putty and it's painted, it's awfully hard to tell where the leather ends and the putty starts. Here's how the cheek is looking so far. We started shaping the bottom jaw today as well as continuing to stretch and add putty to the back of the bear.

This afternoon, Chris Kearns from Pitt Pounders Leather Guild in Pittsburgh called to talk to Jan about a class they are trying to set up for June. They've got 7 people signed up already. Hopefully they'll get the other 3 they need so that Jan will make the trip out there. It'd be nice for people on that side of the country to get a chance to learn from Jan. I got to talk to Chris for a few minutes too. It was nice talking to you Chris, and I hope you have a great class out there in Pittsburgh!!

Kathy said my blog wasn't any fun to read since I never pick on her here. Well, let's fix that. Kathy is starting a new job soon. She had to go in and get finger printed today. I don't think they were all that worried about her criminal past as they were about her hanging around with all her nose picking friends. I think they were just wanting to get a good look at her hands to make sure she washes up :o) (ya happy now Kathy???)

Jake called this afternoon right after I left Jan's for the day to ask about hooking up the generator. While the weather here in Billings has been just wonderful, it's been foggy every day back home and cold enough for the frost to build back up on the power lines again. The power finally went out today. Jake got the generator hooked up and running, but Stacy called a little while ago to let me know the power was back on. 10 hours is sure better than 10 days like last time!!

That's about it for today. Thanks everyone for the comments. I'll let you know how tomorrow goes.

Day #3 on the grizzly

2010-03-04T04:07:00.000-08:00

When I looked at the final picture from day number three, it didn't look like we accomplished a whole lot, but really we did. This day consisted of filling several more layers of putty on the back side of the leather and waiting for each of them to dry. We also started the process of building up the nose area and getting it into the right shape. This is another long process, putting in some putty and letting it dry, adding more, letting it dry. The back teeth in the upper jaw have been roughed in and we started to get the shape around the eyes. Jan took a measurement and we now have the nose out a little over 3 1/2 inches. We've still got a ways to go to get it close to 5 where he thinks we'll be when we are finished. It really is an interesting process and even though he has explained to me how he came up with it, it's hard to believe anyone could figured it all out.

Day #2 on the grizzly

2010-03-02T17:03:00.000-08:00

This morning we started out by finishing up the hairing on the grizzly. On this project, Jan does all the hairing before he does any embossing. When the hair is cut first, it lifts and spreads on it's own when the leather is stretched from the back. It's also just easier to get into all the areas on the animal when the leather is flat than it is after it's been stretched and shaped.

Once the hairing was finished, we started the process of stretching the leather. We started by rolling a marble under the leather which is a process Jan uses on most of his projects. For this project, Jan has come up with some additional techniques. He created some "plugs" out of scrap masonite that he stretches the leather over. When using these plugs a lot of force can be applied to get a lot of stretch out of the leather.
Once a cavity is created on the backside of the leather, we started filled it with a layer of leather putty. The putty is layered in, about 3/8ths of an inch thick. The putty is allowed to dry in between layers. This process takes a lot of time. Between each layer, it has to dry for at least a couple hours. Today we put in 3 layers of putty. The last layer went down into the into the nose. This layer helps to start shaping the nose. Tomorrow we will start filling in the many layers of putty that will build up the nose and lower jaw. I'm beginning to see why this projects takes so much time to complete. Here's where we ended up today.

I feel really fortunate that he has decided to do this one on one lesson with me. He said he doesn't know if he'll ever teach this to anyone else so he's shariing the responsibility of passing on the techniques he has developed to the next group of people wishing to learn. I really hope that I can live up to his expectations.

Day one at the grizzly class

2010-03-02T06:36:00.000-08:00

I arrived here in Billings Sunday evening. The first thing that I noticed was that it's WARM here! Yesterday marked the first day working with Jan Schoonover learning how he creates his amazing bear sculptures in leather. We're working at Jan's house. That has the benifits of being right there where he works everyday. I had the chance to see what he's been working on lately (some really neat stuff). He also pulls out things that he's done earlier in his career as we talk about all kinds of stuff. I bet most of you didn't know that Jan used to design, build and race speed boats, did you? At one time he held 7 world records as his boats went as fast as 120 mph! One of the boats he built and raced crossed the wake of a tug boat on a river and went airborne. He said that it was clocked at 113 mph. The really scary part was that at the time it was 26 feet in the air at the time, upside down. He was throw out just before it came back down into the water, flipped over and sank! Jan showed me a couple wooden models of boats he has built in the past, and of one he still hopes to build in the future.

Well, we did work on the bear too :o) We started by tracing the pattern. Just that part of the process was eye opening for me. The tracing pattern was two parts. The first was a normal tracing pattern for a bear. The second was a smaller part of just the nose that has been distorted so that once all the cutting, stretching and filling is done, it will still look like a bear. We then cut, beveled and added some of the hair texture. Once this was done we started to cut the nose and mouth of the bear loose from the leather. If you saw our leather now, you'd probably think this was a practice piece gone terribly wrong, but I have confidence that Jan knows what he's doing :o)

Here's a couple pictures of where we're at after day one.

This week

2010-02-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

It's been kind of a busy week. It started out with Monday being my birthday. I got to celebrate by pouring concrete in the morning and hanging sheet rock in the afternoon at work. The concrete didn't set up very quickly so I didn't get home from work until around 8:30 in the evening. Stacy made up for a not so fun day with a really yummy steak on the grill and a new swivel knife from Paul and Rosa at Leather Wranglers.

Here's a picture of my new black knife along side my old(er) purple knife. The new knife has a really thin 1/8th inch angle blade. I'm looking forward to trying it out when I start over on that tiny picture project from Silva (the last attempt got taken over by some really nasty mold!) I think I've mentioned it before but I'll do it again, cuz this is my blog and I can :o) Paul and Rosa are a couple of the nicest people you're ever gonna meet anywhere, and Paul makes a really nice swivel knife. The colors are fun too. My new one is called Badlands Black. Kinda fitting, don't ya think?? If you haven't checked out the "featured artists" page on their website you should. They have a lot of great leather carvers featured there. It's been awhile since I've checked it out and see that my good friend Kathy Flanagan is on there now too. Kathy does some awesome carving, guess that's why they added her there.

I've also been spending some time this week working on ordering a couple saddle trees from Rod and Denise Nikkel. It's been a learning experience for me. On all the other saddles I've made, I had Rex order the trees for me, or I just used a stock tree from Bowden Saddle Tree company. For the saddles Jake and I are planning on making, we've decided we'd like a top of the line tree, and from what I've heard, Rod and Denise make those. They have a LOT of information on saddle trees, measurements and saddle fit on their website and Jake and I have spent a lot of time studying it. We also ordered the Dennis Lane Horseback Measuring System. The measuring card system arrived just in time for me to get our horses back's measured before I leave for Billings tomorrow. I had a chance to use the cards yesterday and it was really interesting. They were easy to use and it was kind of fun. Figuring out what kind of tree to order has been really intimidating for me in the past but I think with these cards it will be a lot easier. I talked with Rod on the phone today and it sounds like he now has all the info he needs to start working on our trees. He walked me through some of what he does and it was really nice to talk to him. I've known Denise for a while now through Leatherworker.net, but this was the first time I've talked to Rod. They are another really nice couple and I'm looking forward to working with them.

Tomorrow I'll be headed out for Billings, MT for my 2 week class with Jan Schoonover. I'm really looking forward to that but I'm really going to miss Stacy and my kids. It'll be the longest time I've ever been away from them. Stacy is planning on meeting me in Billings next weekend and that will help. I'll try and post my progress on my project with Jan here on my blog at least every couple days.

Jake's belt finished

2010-02-21T15:03:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple pictures of Jake's finished belt. I think it turned out really well for a first belt. I don't know that I could have done much better. The basket stamp is from Hidecrafter's pro series and the border stamp is a Hackbarth. Finish is oil, neat lac, medium brown antique and tan kote. Then we gave it a coat of Skidmore's Leather Cream. Best of all, it fits!!

Jake starts a belt

2010-02-16T20:44:00.001-08:00

A couple days ago Jake said he needed a new belt so I took out a side of belt leather and told him to go for it. We cut out a strap long enough to make 2 belts in case he wanted to practice. He found a basketweave stamp he liked and started practicing on a left over piece of the strap. Then he went on a started on his first belt. I dug out my copy of Jeff Mosby's basketweave tutorial (you can find it here 0n the PSLAC website) It wasn't long and he had completed the first strap and had done a better job on it than I did on my first one for sure. The impressions weren't real deep and sharp so we decided to case the other strap and stick it in the fridge until he had time to work on it. Tonight he finished up the stamping on the second one and it's looking really good. I might just have to see if I can get him to make me a new belt. I hate making belts! Here's a picture of him stamping away. The cat is there for moral support I think. I'll post a picture of the belt once it's finished.

Some old stuff

2010-02-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

I was cleaning up my workshop today and when I got all the way to the bottom of the pile of stuff on my bench, I found a computer disk. I had no idea what was on it so I popped it in and took a look. There were over a thousand pictures I had taken from classes, shows, and old work I had done from as much as 15 years ago.

This first picture is of several checkbook covers, a wallet and a small notebook. Back in 1994 when our kids were little, Stacy got a job at a local convenience store in town. She worked evenings so when the kids went to bed, I dug out my leather tools and started carving checkbooks. In the 3-4 hours a night that I was alone I could stamp out a checkbook cover. Then the next night I could put one together. By the time I got tired of checkbook covers, I had 25 in a box. I sold a few of these over the next several years, gave some away as gifts and donated a few to charity benefits. The small notebook is one I carried around in my pickup for a long time. The wallet was my first attempt at anything close to Sheridan style carving. It was an entry for a contest held by the International Internet Leather Guild back when I was a member.

Fast forward to 2001. I got the pattern for this picture out of one of the kid's coloring books. I think they got the book from a national park we had visited.

This next picture is of a sunflower. I think the idea for the design came from an old Doodle Page. It was colored with acrylic paints and is one of the first carvings I was ever pretty pleased at how the coloring turned out. The thing that made this project memorable to me is that when I posted a picture of it on the internet, I got an email response from Peter Main complementing me on the coloring. He also sent me a couple sketches to show me how I could improve the pattern. I printed out that email and keep it next to the pattern in my folder. Peter has helped me with a couple patterns since that time and I am really grateful that he has taken the time to help me improve my work.

I gave this picture to my mom and it hangs in her house.

Upcoming projects

2010-02-11T21:00:00.000-08:00

I've got a couple projects coming up that I'm really excited about. The first is a class I'm going to be taking with Jan Schoonover. Jan has offered to teach me how he created his amazing grizzly bear. I think this is the project is the definition of "Extreme embossing". Several years ago this picture on the World Leather Debut in Sheridan, Wy. I'll be traveling to Billings, MT and spending 2 weeks with Jan in March learning the secrets to how he created this work of art. I'm really excited and honored that he has chosen me to be the person he wants to pass this on too.

I'm also in the planning stages of another big project. My son has recently decided that he wants to learn how to make a saddle. We've decided to apply for a grant from the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program from the North Dakota Council for the Arts for funding for the materials he will need to build a saddle. It's kind of "iffy" as to whether we'll be approved or not, but even if we aren't, we are going to go ahead with the project. Jake would like to make an old time saddle similar to the last one I made myself in this apprenticeship program. We are in the process of trying to figure out what kind of tree we will need to order. We are going to be ordering the tree for this project from Rod and Denise Nikkel from Valleyview, AB, Canada. Rod and Denise have a lot of info on their saddle trees on their website and we are studying it trying to learn as much as we can, and we are going to be asking a lot of questions. We have also ordered The Dennis Lane Equine Back Profiling System for Measuring Ridden Horses to help us determine how to order a tree that will fit our horses properly. I am really looking forward to working with Jake on this project and I think I am going to learn a lot at the same time. I've decided that while he is making his first saddle, I am going to be building a saddle too. I've got an old worn out saddle here that belonged to my great grandfather and I've decided that I am going to try and build a saddle that will replicate that one. That saddle was made by a now defunct local saddle shop called Sentinel Butte Saddlery. I am going to have a tree made that will be as similar to the old one as possible. I have most of the old leather from that saddle so I will try and replicate the pieces. I'll also try and replicate the carving patterns from those pieces of leather. I think it will be really fun to try and recreate a piece of history that belonged to the man that homesteaded the ranch that we live on over 100 years ago.

I've also got some other smaller projects to work on so it should be a really busy leather year!

Carving on the mountain lion is finished (I think)

2010-02-07T17:08:00.000-08:00

I had Friday off this week so I spent most of the day working on finishing up the mountain lion carving. I was having a lot of trouble with the grass and the background. In the pattern, Robb had the background in between the grass colored in black and it looked pretty nice like that. I thought that to get the same effect, I'd use a checkered backgrounder for the parts between the grass blades and more of a matting backgrounder around the lion. I piddled around with the checkered background for what seemed like days and finally decided to give up on it. Instead I used the matting backgrounder (294) on the whole picture. By going over the checkered background with the other one, it left that part a couple shades darker and I like that look. If I ever do this picture again there are some things I'd probably change. I'd like the blades of grass to be a little wider and maybe fewer. I think that would make the carving go a lot quicker and also make the grass blades a lot easier to lift and shape. I didn't apply sealer to this picture yet because that would limit Kate in her options in coloring it. I am really interested to see how the grass blades look once they are shaped though. I know Kate is going to do some great stuff with this picture.

I had hoped to have a chance to work on Silva's pattern again this weekend, but other things got in the way. I ended up spending Saturday helping a neighbor work cattle until well after dark. I had promised to do a post a couple how-to's on Leatherworker.net so I worked on those today. The first was on how I did the hair on an elk I carved a few years ago. Here's the original picture I worked from, and the leather carving I created from the picture.

The second how-to was a demo on how to carve a feather. Leather feathers are a good way to use up smaller scraps of leather. They are fairly simple to make and can look quite realistic when painted. Here's the sample I made for the demo (it's not been painted yet).

A really good day

2010-01-31T20:21:00.000-08:00

This morning a power crew truck came into the yard and I asked them if that meant we were close to getting power back. They said they were hoping to have us back on today, but couldn't make any promises. It was cold and windy and miserable out. Those guys sure do earn their money. Since we still didn't have power at noon, I gathered up all the empty gas cans to take then in to fill up again.

Before I left I made a call to Jan Schoonover. I haven't talked to him since early last summer. In Sheridan last year, he called me over to his booth because he wanted to talk to me about something. He told me that he wasn't getting any younger and had been having some health problems. He said that while he still could, he'd like to show someone how he created his grizzly bear that is embossed 6 inches off the leather and he'd like it to be me that he shows. WOW! I love that piece and I'd love to know how he did it. Well, it didn't work out for us to get together any time last year. Last week my boss told me that he was going to take a vacation in March for 8-10 days. Right away I thought I needed to call Jan and see if that would work out for him. When I called him today he said "I've been trying to call you all week". Our phones were out for almost as long as the power was. When I asked what he was calling about, he said " we're moved into our new house now and Alice is recovering from her surgeries and I thought maybe we could get together in March to do that bear". It's kind of amazing how all these things are coming together. I am pretty excited. I really want to do this and now it looks like it is going to happen!

After talking to Jan I went into town and filled up the gas cans. Stacy decided we should go someplace to get something good to eat. We ended up going to Applebees and having a good steak. After that we headed for home. First thing I do when I got home is go to start the generator to get some heat in the house. Right away I see a red light shining in the meter on the pole. I haven't seen that in a while so I flipped up the switch and the yard light came on. We have power again!!!! Things are looking up around here.

9 Days and still counting

2010-01-30T20:53:00.000-08:00

Well, we've passed 9 days now without power in January and we're surviving. We did get phone service back today. The oil wells are pumping a half mile east of us, so they are getting some of the power back on, but they are on different sub station than we are. I heard that the sub station that our power comes from was one that was having the biggest problems so it could still be awhile till we get ours back. We turn on the generator in the morning and in the evening for a few hours to warm up the house. It's been getting down to zero or a few degrees below zero at night so heat is a good thing. We can also get water to take showers, and to water the cows. We've gotten used to cooking on a camp stove or the grill. We use kerosene lanterns, candles and flashlights to find our way around in the dark. The generator wont run everything all at the same time, but it's sure made a difference.

I had a flat tire on my tractor on Thursday while pushing snow, got that fixed and back on today. Was pushing more snow today and the grapple fork fell off the tractor. Got that fixed without too much trouble. It's been an interesting couple of weeks for sure! Maybe tomorrow I can work on some leather for an hour or two. I'm close to finishing up the carving on the mountain lion picture. Kate Dubiel has accepted my offer to let her do the coloring on it. I know what ever she does to it will be great! I've still got the tiny pattern from Silva to finish, and a couple other projects in the planning stages. That's it for now, we'll see what tomorrow brings.

We're back onboard

2010-01-26T20:23:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day. We spent last night in town in a motel. This morning I went into Dickinson and had a cord made up that will connect my welder/generator to the power pole. Got some groceries and some other supplies. I wasn't sure if I'd get back into the yard since it blew all night long, but the biggest drift was only about 3 feet deep and I plowed through it. Once home, I got the generator hooked up to the pole and got some heat going in the house and got the water pumping again. It's now close to 60 in here and it feels pretty good! We lost some food in one of the freezers, but the big ones are still good. Got the rest of the snow cleaned off the road and out of the yard so we're good to go for awhile!

Abondoning ship!

2010-01-25T16:50:00.001-08:00

This morning we woke up to 10 foot deep snow drifts on the road leaving the yard. It was down to 40 degrees in the house. They are predicting temps below zero later this week and the wind is still blowing 40 mph. We decided to head into town for a shower and a warm place to sleep. It took quite a while to dig out of the yard with the tractor. The rest of the roads weren't too bad but the visibility was not good. Jake ended up in the ditch trying to avoid a huge drift and ran a tire off the rim of his car. But we're in a motel for the night. Tomorrow I'll try and get what I need to hook up my welder/generator up to the power pole so we can get some heat into the house and maybe even some water. Thanks everyone for the well wishes and prayers!!

January in ND

2010-01-24T17:37:00.000-08:00

This past week started out with fog, fog and more fog. It was really pretty as the frost stuck to everything. The trees had frost hanging off of them several inches long. But frost on power lines isn't so pretty. By Wednesday when I left for work, the lines we coated with frost and ice about 2 inches thick. The lines were starting to sag a LOT. Some looked like they were just 10 feet off the ground. One of the lines in our corral broke as did some other lines and the power to the house was off for about 6 hours. They got it back on but said the didn't know how long it would last. It lasted until about 6 pm on Thursday. Then lines and poles were snapping all over ND. We have been out of power ever since. No heat, lights, water. The phones went out on Friday around noon. On Saturday afternoon I brought my welder over to the house. With it's generator, we can run a little electricity, keep the freezers cold, and even watch a couple hours of TV. It's been staying between 45-50 degrees in the house which is bearable but the temps are supposed to drop a bunch the next couple days to below 0 at night. Not sure if we'll be able to stay here if that happens. They say it could take a week to 10 days to get power back up and running to everyone. That was before the storm finally hit last night. Today we got several inches new snow and winds around 40 mph. There are 4 foot or deeper snow drifts where we go out of the yard, and I don't know what the roads are like. I guess I'll find out tomorrow when the wind is supposed to quiet down. It could be a really interesting week!!!

Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program

2010-01-16T16:59:00.000-08:00

I received an email this week from Troyd Geist, Folklorist for the North Dakota Council for the Arts. It's time once again to get in applications for the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. This program provides grants to people interested in learning what are considered "traditional arts". Here in ND these include Dakotah storytelling, Vietnamese embroidery, Czech Easter egg decorating, Armenian copper bas relief work, blacksmithing, saddle construction, German-Russian willow basketry, Hidatsa quillwork, Sudanese music, Norwegian Hardanger embroidery, etc. Grants from this program provide up to $2500, part for materials for the apprentice and part goes to the master who is passing on his knowledge.

I've participated in this program twice in the past as an apprentice saddle maker with Rex Cook from Dickinson as the master. You can see pictures of how we made the first saddle here

and the second saddle here.

This year I am thinking about applying for the program to teach my son how to build a saddle.
Several states have similar programs like this one. Check them out by doing a search for Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program or your state's council for the arts.

Teeny Tiny Tools from George Gross

2010-01-16T12:34:00.000-08:00

I was talking to Kathy Flanagan one day about the tiny carving pattern that I got from Silva Fox and Kathy said maybe I needed the tiny tools that George Gross makes. I had not heard of these tools before so I had to find out about them. Kathy said that Ira Cooper of QED usually had them in his booth in Sheridan. That's funny, I usually stop by Ira's booth, but I don't remember seeing them there. Kathy said it's because they are that tiny! Well, I got a hold of Ira through Facebook and he sent me a link to a website that about George's tools, Cow Creaser The tools George makes are tiny modeling tools for the detailed kind of carving that he does. You can see some of the work George does on the website. Ira told me that George has been making 4 sizes of modeling tools but he is thinking of going to just one size. Now for the tough part, what size do I need. Ira helped me out there too. He said he could send me all 4 and I could keep the ones I wanted and send the others back. I knew right away that once I had all four sizes in my hand I wouldn't want to send them back and Ira admitted that was his devious little plan. I received these tools earlier this week in the mail and I haven't had a chance to play with them much but I am looking forward to it. As soon as I get the mountain lion done, I want to get back to work on the tiny horses and I think these are going to really help with that project. The sizes of these tools are 3/32 (small) .066 (smaller) .039 (teeny tiny) and .024 (microscopic).

Last week I was going through some old leather craft magazines and I happened across a couple articles by George Gross. They were in the March/April and the May/June 1992 issues of the Leather Crafters Journal. There is also an article in there where George tells you how he makes his tiny modeling tools if you are into doing it yourself. If you would rather just buy them ready made like I did they have their contact info at the bottom of the Cow Creaser website.

Hair

2010-01-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

I finished up the majority of the hair last night. Still got some more to do on the legs the neck. Here's what it looks like now. I took the first picture last night right on my bench like I normally do. I took another this morning with the picture in the light booth Stacy got me for Christmas. I never realized that it would make that much of a difference.

Back to the ear

2010-01-08T14:12:00.001-08:00

The ear on the right side of the lion's face is what's going to give this picture real 3 dimension. It's going to be the part that sticks out the farthest from the background. By having it stick out this far, it will help make the lion's head look like it is turned. So, at this point, I took the scalpel and sliced the ear loose all the way back to where it would be attached to the head.

As you can see here, it's cut through the leather and into the putty below. This scar will be filled in with a thin layer of putty. The back of the ear will also be shaped with putty.

To get the putty to stick to the ear, I first coat the leather with rubber cement.

Putty is applied to the back of the ear to give it shape, and to get it to stand up. Putty is also used to cover the scar in the leather where the ear was cut loose. Then when the putty has dried for awhile, the hairing knife is used to put texture over the putty helping to hide the scar.

Then a little water is added to the front side of the ear so that it softens up a little and I can shape it.

And here is how the ear looks now.

Hairing around the eye

2010-01-08T12:50:00.000-08:00

Now I've moved on to the hair around the eye. Under the eye, I started by "picking" with the hair knife like I did on the nose. Then after a few rows of the really short hair, I started to cut in slightly longer hair.

This hair is then sliced underneath and separated in the same way we did the longer hair inside the ear, but on a smaller scale.

I take a scalpel or a modeling tool with the end sharpened up to slice under the top eye lid.

To do the eye lash, I cut a piece of light cardboard (business card etc.) and tuck it into the cut line of the eyelash. This will keep me from accidentally making a cut on the eye ball. A cut there is almost impossible to smooth out or cover up.

With the cardboard in place, use the scalpel to cut in individual eye lashes. These cuts need to be really close together to make them look realistic.

Next I'll continue on with the hair above the eye, being careful to watch the direction of the hair and the length.

More work on the lion

2010-01-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

I decided that I wanted a little more stretch on the jaw of the lion so I wetted that area on the front of the leather, then used a large marble to push this area up from the backside. You can see that the putty while dry, is still flexible enough to allow you to form and shape it. The cavity is once again filled with the putty mixture.

Ok, now I'm ready to start the hairing. I started right above the nose putting in really short hairs with the multi blade hairing knife. The short hair is made by stabbing the tips of the blades into the leather and pulling up.

Then I moved over to the ear. The long hairs inside the ear are made by making long cuts with the hairing knife.

Then the scalpel is used to slice carefully under the cuts we just made with the hairing knife. This will allow the hair to be lifted up.

Then, again using the scalpel, slice between each individual hair. This will allow them to really stand up and be shaped.

Here you can see how the leather takes the shape of individual hairs.

Tooling the grass (background on the lion)

2010-01-08T11:02:00.000-08:00

One of the things that I really like about Robb's video lessons is that he has already done all the "thinking". I spent a couple days working on the grass, on and off. It was mostly a lot of beveling and backgrounding, kind of boring. The challenging part was to make sure that where grass blades crossed over each other, they came out on the other side and didn't end abruptly or just disappear. I had to go over some of it several times to get some depth. I'm still not finished with that part, I'll do some more cleaning up later and add some modeling to the individual grass blades. What I wanted to do was be able to see where the blades going to end up in front of the lion because I wanted to cut some of the tips loose in this area. Then when I got to the hairing, I could put hair texture on the areas where the grass had been cut loose.

I've used a couple different backgound textures. A simple checkered texture between the blades of grass, and a different texture around the outside area of the picture. I am thinking this will help when it comes to the coloring portion of the picture. Now I'm ready to move on to the fun part, cutting the hair.

Mountain lion progress

2010-01-03T07:14:00.000-08:00

I had a pretty good day yesterday with the mountain lion despite a cold that's knocking me on my butt. This piece of leather is working great and the leather putty is doing exactly what it's supposed to do so I'm getting a lot of depth and definition. It's fun when things go like they are supposed to. I was tempted to start the hairing, but I think I can do a lot more shaping with this one and I want to take my time and get as much detail into it as I can. I could have probably finished that part but I took off a few hours in the afternoon to push snow again. The wind picked up pretty good yesterday and it wont take much blowing snow to get us blocked in here again so I'm trying to get the snow pushed back off the road as far as I can. A couple more hours in the tractor today and it should be ready for the next round.

Well, here's a few pictures of what I accomplished yesterday.

Back to something I'm comfortable with

2010-01-01T22:26:00.000-08:00

Because of Christmas, and the weather the last couple weeks, I haven't been working. Usually that means I get to spend some time carving leather. But thanks to the snow storm on Christmas eve, I got to spend the next couple days pushing snow trying to open up our road, and then several days after that repairing the loader on my tractor. Add to that playing the Maytag repairman with our dryer, and before that replacing the pressure tank in our water well. Seems like when ever I start working on any repair job it's never just something simple. I'm always missing one more bolt or tool or I didn't realize the pulley on the dryer was out along with the belt. Nothing is ever simple!!!

Today I decided to take a break and carve some leather. I still haven't finished the tiny picture Silva challenged me too but I will get back to it one of these days. I know that trying things that are "out of our comfort zone" cause us to learn and grow. But today I just wanted to do something that I was more comfortable with. I have a book of patterns from Robb Barr that I've always wanted to do something out of, so I picked 2 patterns in the book and traced them. The one I have started on first is a really neat mountain lion that Jake really liked. Since it's one of Robb's patterns, it just begs to be embossed. So far I've gotten it traced to the leather, cut, beveled, embossed and filled with putty. It's hanging up to dry overnight.

Here's a few pictures of my progress so far.

More Scrapbook toys and leather

2009-12-30T19:31:00.000-08:00

Stacy got a new machine last year that cuts shapes out of paper, chip board, magnet etc. We have often wondered if it would work on lighter weights of leather and yesterday we finally tried it out. The machine is called a Cricut Expression (I think there are a lot better prices out there if you look). It has different cartridges that contain shapes, alphabets, etc and once you pick out your design, the machine cuts out the shape. There is software that allows manipulate the shapes or letters and gives you all kinds of options.

We first tried to cut 1-2 ounce goat skin with the machine and it worked pretty well. There was one small spot that we had to finish with a scissor but for cutting intricate designs, it sure beat anything I had tried before. Then we decided to try some 2-3 ounce veg tanned leather and that worked just as well. In order to run the leather through the machine, you have to stick it onto a cutting mat that has a light adhesive on it. The mat we tried had seen quite a bit of use already so the adhesive wasn't very tacky. A new mat might have held the leather down better and allowed the design to be cut out completely. We've got a lot of experimenting to do, but the possibilities for this are kind of exciting! Stacy ran the leaf on the left through one of her other machines that embossed a design on it. She then rubbed a little ink over it to bring the design pattern out a little. I did a little stamping on the other leaf . My design will need some work :o)

Merry Christmas!!

2009-12-25T16:17:00.000-08:00

Stacy took this pictures last week when it was just COLD outside. Today it's a blizzard and it's supposed to keep it up through tomorrow. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is safe and warm.

Today's progress (or lack of)

2009-12-22T18:10:00.000-08:00

I spent some time today working on this tiny picture again. It's beginning to get frustrating because I seem to be fighting the piece of leather I'm working with. I really like this stuff for some of the embossing work I do because it has a lot of stretch, but for this project, that's something I don't need. I tried "slicking" the leather before I started working with it to reduce the stretch. This is the first time I've ever tried that and I am not sure if I like the results. It seems to hold water really well at first, but later on when I try to add more moisture, it seems to dry out more quickly. I also can't seem to put in tiny details with the modeling tool like I want too. So, I think this is going to end up being a practice piece and I'm going to start over. I cut a piece of 9-10 ounce leather that I got in Sheridan a few years ago from Harry Boutin and Son's. It's supposed to be tanned in Germany and really looks and feels nice. Not sure if it will work better or not, but once I get frustrated with a project, I know that I need to move on. Fighting it just isn't worth the time and effort.

I'll show some of what I did on the piece today, even if it ends up just being practice. Even the tiniest bevelers I had wouldn't fit in some of the places I needed them to go. For the nostril on the horse, a dental pick did the job.

I tried to use my Peter Main modeling tool on the eyes of the small animals but it was also too big (as you can see in the picture). The dental pick was too pointy and didn't work here either. So, what to do? I took a sewing needle and filed one side down flat and rounded the end and I think that I can turn that into a really small modeling tool. I practiced with it a little and it looks like it just might work.

The small bevelers are going to work for doing the outline of the chickens body, but I'll need a modeling tool to get any details into the heads. Here you can see that I just couldn't get the leather to take the tiny detail that I wanted to get into it. I'm wondering if I can see good enough to make actual feathers on the chickens with a scalpel.

Here I started to bevel the little people in the background. Again, the small tools are going to work for basic shapes, but it's going to take a lot of work with the modeling tool to make it look good.

And finally, I wanted to see how putting the wood effects onto the sidewalk, the fence and the walls of the buildings was going to look. I tried to draw these into the leather with the modeling tool. That's what it looks like, lines scratched into the leather. I couldn't get the leather to take any kind of shape. If I have any time tomorrow, I'll try tracing the pattern onto a new piece of leather and start again. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

A winter challenge project

2009-12-21T22:03:00.000-08:00

A while back I received an email from Silva Fox saying she had a pattern for me to try on some cold, snowy winter days. She didn't include the pattern in the first email but said I could carve it and color it however I wanted, but couldn't change the size of the pattern. Ok, now my curiosity is up. The next day I get the pattern. It's an extremely reduced version of Charles Russell's "A Quiet Day in Utica" or what Charlie called "Tin Canning a Dog". I'm not sure what the original size of this painting was, but Silva's version is 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches!! You'd think that would be impossible to carve with any detail but she also enclosed a picture of her carving of this piece. It's amazing!

I started tracing and cutting this pattern a couple weeks ago, and since today is snowy and cold, I decided to start working on the carving. It's quite a challenge to work on something this small and I had to call in some favors. My friend Dave Peterson was kind enough to loan me some really tiny figure carving tools. These are tools that were made by Bob Beard for Robb Barr. So now I've got three of the most talented artists ever to carve leather involved in this project. How cool is that!!!

The first step to working on this was to trace the pattern and then transfer it onto leather. This was a challenge all on it's own since the pattern was so tiny. I traced it onto tracing film and then transfered it onto the leather using the tip of a mechanical pencil as the tip of my tracing stylus wasn't fine enough to get the detail into this pattern.

Then it was time to start cutting the pattern with the swivel knife. Every part of working on this project is made more difficult for me because of it's size and the fact that I can't see nearly as good as I used to be able to. I am using several light sources, my mini tech light from Ira Cooper, and my new favorite swivel knife from Paul at Leather Wrangler's. I tried to carve each line as carefully as possible and kept finding myself having to study the picture of Silva's finished picture to make sure I was doing things right.

Now it's time to break out the tiny bevelers that I borrowed from Dave. These really helped to get into these close places that needed to be beveled. I never would have imagined needing tools this small before but they sure came in handy here.

There were some places where even the smallest bevelers wouldn't fit, or do the job that I am trying to do so then I used another of my favorite tools. This one is Peter Main's famous modeling tool. This tool will be used a lot to clean up choppy beveling and also as a beveler in tight spots like the horse's mouth shown here.

Here's where I'm at tonight. I've included my pretty purple swivel knife in the picture to give you some idea of the size of this carving. More to come!!

Zach's wren

2009-12-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

I just had to show you all a picture of Zach's wren from the class I taught in Fargo. Zach is 11 years old and he's showing tremendous talent at carving leather. I hadn't even attempted to carve leather yet at that age. If he keeps at this, I think he's going to be amazing!!

Some color on the goldfinch

2009-12-15T15:08:00.000-08:00

Since it's still to cold to work outside, I decided to see what I could do with some color on the goldfinch I started quite some time ago. I am fairly happy with how this turned out. I tried some background color around the bird next, and well...

that didn't go so well. I'm on about the third attempt at it and decided to go and do something else instead. If it ever turns out, I'll post a picture of it :o)

Fargo Leather Carving Class

2009-12-14T08:15:00.000-08:00

Well, the class in Fargo is over now and it was a success. I had 4 students and they all did a great job on their wrens. It's always fun to get together with other leather carvers and work on projects together and I'm really liking being able to help them try new things and overcome their fears and intimidations.

Here's a picture of me with a couple of my favorite things, my big hat and my big Mountain Dew!

We started the class Friday evening with tracing, carving, beveling and embossing our wrens. I picked up a can of rubber cement from the store to mix up the putty for embossing with and never gave a thought to how the re-formulated cement might work. Rubber cement is rubber cement, right? Well, when we got back to class Saturday morning we got a little surprise. Some of the rubber cement had soaked through to the front of the leather. It looks like this was where the leather had been sitting on the marble slabs overnight. I guess that's maybe why Jan Schoonover always hangs projects up by a corner overnight to dry??

Here you can see the spot left on Zack's bird where the cement had soaked through. It made the leather really hard in that area and difficult to cut the feathers, but we worked through it. The next problem was that the putty didn't dry. Even after a couple days, it's still as mushy as it was when we mixed it up. That wasn't a real big problem with this project. We just used a modeling tool instead of bevelers. If it would have been a project where we needed to bevel in muscle contours and things like that, I don't know what we would have done. So, message to self, make sure you've tried all the materials you're going to use in class BEFORE the class!!! I decided to try Tandy's Block Out as an alternative to Feibing's X-1 finish as a stiffener on the feathers and sealer before painting and it worked really well. It's good to know that I have a replacement for the X-1 that you can't get anymore.

My good friend Dave Peterson drove over from Bismarck to take this class with me, and my new friend Bob Feakes is from Hawley, MN.

In this picture is 11 year old Zack Myers. I was really impressed with his skill at carving leather and his patience. We spent 10 hours working on this project on Saturday and he kept at it till the end. If this guy keeps at this, I predict he's gonna be a future master leather carver, and a great candidate for the Ann Stohlman award.

A lot of times in the classes I've taken over the years, when we get to the coloring part of the class, we are running out of time or people are just wanting to be done already, or for some other reason, the coloring part gets rushed through. I have always found the coloring part to be quite challenging and I hoped that in my classes, I could really focus on that part and teach the students some of the things that have worked for me. It didn't work very well at the first class I taught in Rapid, we ran out of time too. So at this class, we started earlier and ran longer, but I got to spend the time I wanted to on the coloring. I think it paid off when Dave came up to me and said, "out of all the classes I've taken, this is the first one where I've been happy with how the coloring turned out". It was getting late by the time we got the painting of the birds finished, so I just gave them a quick demo on how I painted the background.

Here's Mark Norquist, the manager of the Tandy Leather Factory store in Fargo. Thanks Mark for inviting me to do this class in Fargo. I hope we get to do more of these in the future!

Color can be SO frustrating!!

2009-12-07T21:34:00.000-08:00

I decided maybe I should try and finish up the coloring on the wren I did in the class in Rapid City. I had most of it done except for the background. I figured now would be a good time to do that since I have another class on this project coming up this weekend. I started coloring on the background yesterday afternoon. I am not sure what was going on but it just wasn't working. The colors wouldn't blend, they just looked awful. So after messing with it quite a while, I decided to go in a completely different direction and use shades of blues instead of browns. That didn't go any better. Finally I just took out the can of denatured alcohol and scrubbed all the color that I had been putting on back off. It's yucky stuff to use, smells bad, makes a gooey mess, but with quite a bit of effort, I got most of it off. I put it away for the night in frustration. I should have taken some pictures of how awful it was looking, but I really didn't need any reminders! Today I decided to give it one more try. It started out going just as badly as it did the day before but I decided I was going to just keep going until I either completely ruined it, or it turned out ok. Next time I do this I think I need to video it so that I can remember what works and what doesn't and maybe if someone else watches it they can give me some pointers on how to do it better. Ok, I'm done rambling now :o) Here's how it finally turned out.

Wren Class in Fargo, Dec 11th and 12th (Update)

2009-12-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

As of yesterday, we have 5 confirmed students for the Fargo class. Looks like this class is a go!! I'm busy printing out lessons and putting together bags of leather dust. Stacy picked up more scalpels in town today. About all that is left to do to get ready is to make up some more hairing knives and to pray for decent weather for that weekend. I'm getting kind of excited for this class.