u/swifthammerleather

I was selfish, bear with me.

I was up late the other night unable to turn my brain off. When that happens, I usually just accept the situation and head to my shop to trick my brain into feeling productive. Simply being in the shop doing busy work wasn’t enough, I needed to make something.

I whipped up a quick flower tracing, designed a frame for it, and got to work. I start how I usually do: spray some water on the leather, do a quick transfer, and while I’m waiting for it to case, I’m getting my rigging in position to start recording. I recorded the first cut and thought, “hold on a minute. Why am I recording this?”

Did I come to my shop at 1am to work, or to tell my brain to rest? I decided I needed this one for my sanity. I moved the rigging out of the way and simply tooled the project like nobody was watching. Sometimes I forget how fast I can move when I'm not worried about making the process visible. I don’t plan on posting anything more than these pictures for this project. This one was for me.

Many aspiring leather artists appreciate my “non-traditional” work, but the foundations of sculpture can so readily be found in nature- flowers, especially. There are some decisions that need to be made to find the balance between how much realism you want to maintain or how much depth you want to pull from the material.

Sometimes it feels like realism and depth are on the same slider. Adding more to one removes from the other. Don’t be afraid to stray from what’s “real”, especially if that means adding flavor to your project.

I felt a lot better after finishing this project.

I recently taught a tooling class and snapped this quick shot at the end. The subject for the day was illusions of depth and how to take advantage of them.

Recently found a test sketch and it got me thinking: has anyone else attempted to do this before? I feel like this is a really niche subject in an already niche art media and I'm curious if this is breaking new ground.

Made a thing nobody asked for but sounded fun.

Every year, the Heart of Texas Leather Show has a competition where we're given a prompt shortly before the show. You make the best you can in the given time frame. This year's prompt was a patriotic valet tray.

Here's the gift I made for my sister from the video posted yesterday.

Made this little dude here to see if the fuzz effect was possible before I commit to the bigger commission project. What do you think?

I have some Texas classes coming up and needed to make an example of what we'll be tooling in class. I got a little carried away while backgrounding.

I'll be in Texas soon to teach some classes about social media and leather tooling. If you're not familiar with the Heart of Texas Leathercraft Tradeshow in Waco, Tx, it's a great opportunity to get some fine tools and education.