Wildlife-inspired Leatherwork

A number of years ago - maybe as many as 15 - Lindsay and I diverted from the M5 on our way down to the West Country, and called in at Cleveden Craft Centre. Here we found a pleasant assortment of craft shops and a café. I was particularly impressed by the workshop of Mr. Arnold Smith, who is one of the finest leather-workers in UK, and who has special talent for portraying wildlife in leather. On this first visit, I purchased a simple leather belt that was decorated with stamped oak leaves and acorns.

Turn the clock forward to 2010, after a few more visits and a couple more belts purchased, when Lindsay kindly commissioned Mr Smith to produce a picture of a Little Owl for our wedding anniversary. Mr Smith is a very busy man, and it was a few months before my Little Owl picture arrived, but I was delighted with it, and pleasantly surprised by the price charged. You can find Mr Smith's web site here:- http://leathercraft.weareblink.com/  - I am sure that you will be impressed by his work.

my Little Owl  - by ACA Smith

Now this is where I find that I've lost track of the timeline of how it all happened, but Lindsay and our daughter, Melanie, had been attending a number of short crafting courses at 'Crafts in the Court' at nearby Barwell. At one point, they decided to book on a short leather carving course being conducted by a gentleman by the name of Malcolm (I'm sorry to say that I've forgotten his surname) and asked if I was interested in joining them. My answer was a resounding 'yes please!', as I was already contemplating making a leather belt. 

The course was excellent and lasted probably only two or three hours and there was a follow-up a couple of weeks later.  The girls both made decorative Christmas items, but I was trying out some potential designs for a belt. 

After these sessions there was a long period of several months getting a raft of tools and materials assembled and then doing a few practice pieces. Some of these items were obtained from Mr. Smith, some via the internet, and some from The Identity Store, an excellent leathercraft supplier in Matlock. Eventually, over the Christmas period of 2017, I started work on the belt itself. I had in mind that I would like to make three belts, each one featuring one aspect of my wildlife interest. Wanting to leave the most important one to last, I started with a butterfly-themed belt, inspired by the Chalkhill Blue butterflies that I'd been seeing during that summer. The belt was eventually finished in February 2018, and although it shows my lack of skill, I am nevertheless quite pleased with it, as it is not that easy a task carving detail into an item that is only an inch and a half (3.8cm) wide. The photo below shows a section of it.

 section of Butterfly Belt - finished in February, 2018

It was not until late summer of 2019 that I embarked on the second belt, having totally gone rusty on any skills I might have developed during the production of the first one. I wanted this one to be totally different to the first, and to feature dragonflies. I knew that it would be virtually impossible for me to carve dragonflies at such a small size, but the main supplier of leatherworking materials in USA, Tandy, once offered a dragonfly punch tool, now discontinued. I managed to get one and, although it was quite basic, found that with some additional cuts I could make the dragonflies a little more detailed. I also spent some time working out a reedmace design to cut into the leather, and sorting out what I wanted to do with the 'background' leather to give a suggestion of water. The trial pieces took a long while, but the belt itself was quite quickly produced. Again, I am relatively pleased with the result.

section of Dragonfly Belt - finished in October, 2019

There was then a huge gap without doing any leatherwork at all until early 2020. For the third belt, to feature owls, I spent months on and off trying various different designs and processes as I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to achieve. By early December, 2020 I was ready to go. I had decided on something roughly in the style of the first belt, with a simple design, but somewhat more elaborate finishing processes. I hope that I will not now bore you by explaining some of the steps taken to produce it.

Swivel Knife

For the design of the leaf and flower motif, as shown in the first belt, I used a commercially produced stencil. This has a raised design on one side. The leather is then moistened (a process known as 'casing'), the stencil is placed on the moistened leather, and pressure applied to the stencil so that it leaves a mark on the leather where cuts are to be made.

Fairly deep cuts are then made in the cased leather using something called a 'swivel knife'. The swivel knife has to be kept razor-sharp by stropping before each session. The result is as shown below.

pattern cut into cased leather

The leather is cased again, and an assortment of punches is then used with a nylon-headed mallet, with the leather sitting on a stone slab, to give contour and texture to the design, and extra detail is cut in to the design, as shown below.

design after the leather is punched and extra detail cut in

I then used a similar process to produce what were intended to be a few representations of Little Owl between the leaf/flower pattern sections. This used similar processes, but the design was my own and printed onto tracing paper which I then used a stylus on to press the design into the cased leather. Lindsay pointed out to me, after it was too late, that I'd managed to make the owl cross-eyed! A texture was then punched into the 'background' of the design. At this stage things look a little messy, but the design is starting to come to life.

 

section of belt after all cutting and punching finished

After this, there was a complex process of colouring and finishing the belt. This involved applying coats of masking liquid, and a couple of different stains with a fine brush, then applying an antiquing compound, before smoothing the edges of the belt and applying a protective finishing coat - all of which took rather longer than the cutting and punching (usually referred to as 'leather carving'). All I had to do then was attach a fine brass buckle!

 

OK, so I'm no artist, and my leather-working skills are rather basic, but I'm quite pleased with the result.

 

section of the finished Little Owl belt

I'm not sure what my next leatherworking project might be if, indeed, there ever is one, and will probably, by then, find myself back to square-one skills-wise!

 

 

Thank you for your visit. This was an absolute one-off blog post. My next post will be back to my wildlife observations and, primarily, feature birds

 

I wish you all the best for 2021. Take great care, stay safe, and make the most of the wildlife that surrounds you.