Every time I’ve wanted to put an image onto leather, it’s been a design that I either created or another artist has designed for me and I’ve hand-tooled it to get it to look the way I wanted. In leather working, there are hundreds of tools available for use for a variety of purposes. Besides those tools, there are countless other things that you could use to tool your leather. To name a few, there are shaders, backgrounders, design accents, etc. You name it, there’s a tool for it. If there isn’t, then you can design one yourself.
Never in a million years would I have thought about using those tools and stamps to create an image in the leather without some form of knife cutting first. In this latest episode of “The Tony Teachings,” that’s exactly what we did. The name of the class was “Creative Stamping” and we did just that. He handing out some cuff blanks and bookmark blanks and told us to go nuts.
I am IN LOVE. Cutting and tooling leather comes very easy to me which you might think is a bit odd. After all, the stamps are already made, so wouldn’t the act of stamping be easier? Well, in theory, you’re right. But when the work is half-done for me, I have a hard time finishing it. I’m much better at creating something from scratch. But this, while it doesn’t come easy to me, is so satisfying to have a piece that looks great.
I’m looking forward to experimenting more with this kind of work. My only concern is that I have to make sure I don’t get caught in a rut doing the same technique and design over and over. I’ve already caught myself doing this with some of the geometric stamping. I’m so in love with it that I want to use it on everything. That, of course, is not the best way to grow. Or, you could say that continuously using similar patterns is what creates your signature look. Regardless, I’m looking forward to playing with it more and hope you’ll let me know if you have any ideas that you’d like me to try. I hope you like what you see!
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