Latest addition to my leather art collection

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

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

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.