Branching Out - Trial and Error with a Leather Archery Arm Guard

I've been working with leather for nearly 4 years now, creating my first leather mask back in 2009.  In the beginning, my leatherwork was primarily masks, and thus were pieces where the majority of the detail was through minimal tooling, but mostly acrylic paint.  In 'leatherworking' terms, my masks weren't what most people would consider a 'traditional' leather craft.  To be honest, all those dyes, oils, lacing, stitching, grommets and rivets kind of scared me!  I saw beautiful, cleanly-tooled leather pieces by professional leatherworkers and doubted I could ever do something so beautiful and functional.  So for years, the extent of my leatherwork remained masks, and a few keychains.  When people requested commissions for other leather items, I declined, since I didn't have the confidence to try.

About a year ago, I started branching out a little, making leather feather pendants and leather wing pendants.  These were still mostly painting and little tooling, but I started discovering that I could make things out of leather aside from just masks.  In October of 2012, I finally bought a new recurve bow after planning and saving up since the beginning of the year.  I've been involved with archery since 2001, but hadn't picked up a bow since 2007 for a variety of reasons.  Getting back into archery inspired me to create my own archery accessories.  My first inspiration was to create the one item I don't have yet, which is a quiver...but that's far too ambitious a project just yet!  I realized I had to practice on something smaller, so I decided to try my hand at an arm guard.

Oak Falcon - Leather Archery Arm Guard (Version 1) - October 2012

This was my first attempt, back in October of 2012.  I created a few sketches for the falcon, settled on this design, and transferred it to my leather.  I had a new ceramic swivel blade (used to cut lines into the surface of the leather), which doesn't go dull like metal swivel blades.  However, the blade I had was a straight blade, meaning it was thick and meant mostly for larger tooled pieces.  I ran into a lot of problems with my small, detailed design, namely the blade 'digging up' my leather around corners.  It was probably 60% user inexperience and 40% 'wrong tool for the job'.

I also did not case the leather correctly.  Casing leather is the process of wetting the leather and letting it sit long enough for the moisture to travel through the leather, while the very top of the leather dries to the point of it returning to its 'dry color.'  The interior of the leather is still slightly damp, however, meaning when you use tools such as stamps, you get a nice beveled edge.  Leather that is too dry throughout will result in the tools not pushing down far enough into the leather.  Leather that is too wet throughout (as I learned) will result in the leather becoming 'mushy' and being too pliable.  Imagine working with clay - if the clay is too firm, it won't shape right.  If it is too wet, it won't keep its shape and simply squish around.  My leather was too wet when I tooled it, so the tooling ended up very sloppy.

Once the tooling was finished, it came time to dye the leather.  I was determined not to fall back on my 'crutch' of acrylic paint!  I wanted to color it almost entirely with leather dyes.  Before even touching the arm guard, I'd experimented on some scrap leather, using resists (Super Shene), seeing how certain colors looked over tooled spots, and testing out my leather antique gels.  All in all, I realized my design was just too detailed and my demands for color were just too extreme for what I was trying to do.  I used brushes to get into small areas, but overall the whole design still looked a bit sloppy.  In addition to that, I tried to shade with the dye, and it didn't look the way I wanted.

When I cut the shape of the arm guard, I made the mistake of using leather shears.  Since I'd never created a straight-edged piece before (leather masks always have curves), I didn't think to use anything else!  Well, being a human, my 'straight cut' ended up a little wavy and irregular, as can be seen in the first image.  I also decided to create straps and use buckles so it could be put on and easily tightened using only one hand.  The straps ended up being very scratchy and 'pinched' when I put it on.

But in the end, I wasn't too upset with the outcome since I wasn't expecting a perfect piece.  This started as a practice piece, and while full of mistakes, I learned what to do and what not to do.  So a few months later, I tried my hand at creating it again.


Oak Falcon - Leather Archery Arm Guard (Version 2) - January 2013

This time, I simplified the design a little, to exclude the leaves overlapping the falcon, and some of the feather layers on the breast.  I also wasn't afraid this time to simplify the colors.  The falcon's chest doesn't have to be extremely light, it just has to be lighter than the rest of the body.  Like with the first, I used a layer of resist to prevent the overlaying dye from getting too dark.  The only drawback of this is it can result in a 'blotchy' dye layer, but you can avoid this for the most part by making sure you don't leave any pools of dye.

Instead of the thick straight swivel blade, I used a ceramic angle blade, which gave me more control over detail and curves.  I made sure to case the leather properly, which resulted in a much cleaner tooling.  This time, I used a dark brown antique gel instead of black, which allowed me to go over the entire design without worrying about it looking too dark.  The antique gel, when rubbed onto tooled leather, goes into the lines of your tooling and stays there after it's wiped from the surface.  It also seats itself into the pores of the leather, so it does darken the design slightly.

Perhaps the biggest change with this version was the addition of eyelets and lace instead of straps and buckles.  It's much more comfortable to wear, though it doesn't stay on as tight with just a one-handed knot.  My solution will be to add a cord lock (like those used on hoodies), so it can be tightened with one hand.  The edges are also much straighter, as I used a ruler and a utility knife to cut them instead of shears.

Lastly, as the dye was drying, I curved the arm guard around and kept it in a curve by using elastic bands.  When the dye dried, the arm guard stayed in a curved shape.  The first one was stiff in the wrong places and didn't keep a curved shape well, so this was another improvement.

There are still some improvements I can make to future arm guards, but I'm much more confident in creating more 'traditional' leather work after making these two arm guards.  Perhaps once I've made a few more, I'll find the courage to try making a tooled quiver!
 

Sylvan - Work in Progress 1

Part 1: Washes

To preserve the 'gems' on the falcon's feathers, I cover them with masking fluid.  This will allow me to paint washes over them and not have to worry about painting around them, so when it comes time to paint them I have the white of the paper.  Based on the color sketch, I start putting in wet-on-wet washes to make sure they blend well.  The important part here is to make sure you only wet areas that are NOT touching other wet sections...otherwise the colors from the first section will bleed into the other section!  For example, I waited until the falcon's wing was completely dry before wetting the hawk's head and back.

It's important not to go too dark at this stage, and this is more of an underpainting basis for the other layers.



Part 2: Adding Color
 

In the falcon's wing, you can see how I started adding color to individual feathers.  I wanted a bit of a gradient, so I started at the top, with aureolin yellow, then going lower with cadmium orange, then using quinacridone rose and finally Thio violet.  Even here, I made sure to use wet-on-wet to encourage the colors to blend cleanly, while using a brush very heavy with pigment.  When the paper is wet, if your brush doesn't have a lot of pigment, you're going to end up with a very weak wash.

I continued down the wing, combining Thio Violet with cerulean blue.  Right now the whole thing looks very oversaturated, but adding shadows and value in the next step will balance some of the color, and make the colors seem even more brilliant, when contrasted with the dull shadows.  I've also started to add detail to the leaves of the willows.

Sylvan - Sketch and Color Sketch

I've been so busy with leatherwork lately that I've barely had time to paint!  Thankfully I've made time to work on things between projects, and here is one 'just for me' painting I'm starting.

For this, I'm incorporating two techniques I'm aiming for in my work - larger paper size, and experimenting with different paper proportions.  I tend to work around 8X10 or smaller,  but this piece is 12 inches long.  I also find that working in a more 'slender' paper size helps me pay closer attention to composition.

I also aimed to experiment with different angles.  The viewer is looking up at the falcon, but down at the hawk.  The hawk is also mostly facing away from the viewer, while the falcon is looking at the viewer.  I wanted to have a push-and-pull interaction: looking up and down, being looked at and looking away.

I experimented with different colors before settling on this color sketch.  The previous sketches were too 'rainbow', but I want to have a balance between saturation and dull color - that's what truly makes color pop.  The painting itself will be a bit brighter - I find I work too dark digitally most of the time!

Here, I'm aiming for compliments - the orange and green of the hawk and leaves, with blue and purple next to the yellow and orange of the hawk's plumage.  I'm also working on carrying color around the composition - the brilliant green of the leaves on the falcon carry to the background, and to the hawk's eye, and finally there's a hint of it in the hawk's secondary feathers.

The real test here will be if I can stick mostly to the color sketch...or if my watercolors take me in a whole new direction! 

Portrait practice and nature studies

Lately I've been in a mood to practice digital portraits.  I adore seeing the color and value artists achieve with skintones digitally, and I suppose the final push was when I got a bunch of brushes from my friend Sam Hogg, whose digital (and traditional) work is incredible.  She also pointed out something that should have been obvious to a friend and I that we never knew was possible in Photoshop - brush opacity controlled by pen pressure.  I'd long been controlling brush size with pen pressure, but never knew you could control opacity that way as well - I always thought if you wanted your pen to control opacity, you had to use a program such as Corel Painter.

You'll probably think that I've posted these two digital portraits out of order, since the first is much better than the second, but the first portrait is with photo reference, and the second is without.  For my second sketch I wanted to see how much I could 'remember' about facial anatomy and color/shadow without consulting a reference.


Referenced from this photo by Faestock on DeviantART:

Primarily I'm trying to improve my facial anatomy.  My biggest problem spots are noses - even in this sketch, when I finished, I realized the nose was actually too far to the left (her right) and I had to move it over.  Even using a reference, I tend to go 'blind' when it comes to the human face (and body).  This is something I hope to improve upon by practice.


No reference (and it shows!)

Here my weakness with noses is pretty apparent, as well as an all-around unfamiliarity with the human face.  You'd think that being a human myself, I'd be pretty familiar with the features, but it's amazingly difficult to 'remember' all the subtleties to a nose, or the flaps of skin around the eye.  The colors are also weaker compared to the first.

Today, I decided to have lunch on my favorite rock at a nearby wooded area that surrounds the town reservoir.  On my way back, I found a stunning red maple leaf with bright green veins - a leaf that was probably just starting to turn but fell off the tree prematurely.  I took it home with the intention to paint it, and noticed that by the time it was in my house, it had already started to darken and dull!  It's as if autumn leaves have a built-in 'leave me outside' mechanism.

Autumn Leaf Study (watercolor on paper) :

 Even with all its imperfections, I still like this study.  Somehow, the roughness and looseness of nature studies seem more forgiving than human anatomy - perhaps because we, as humans, are more familiar with the appearance of our own species than the world around us.  Or perhaps it's nothing so complex and there's just something beautiful about loose nature studies!

Allegiance - Second Half and Finished Painting

I thought I had posted the second half of this progress, but it appears I didn't!  Better late than never, I suppose!

Building up More Color

This stage focuses more on building up the color on the feathers.  Painting with watercolor involves a lot of layers, so while this may seem like an insignificant step, it's actually the result of a number of layers.  If you try to achieve this depth of color in one layer alone, it's not going to look right.  I used a combination of raw umber, sepia, and Van Dyk brown for the upper wings, with some raw sienna for the reddish parts on the secondaries.  For the legs, I used Payne's gray to start painting in the shadows of the fur.


Ground and Pillar Texture

To give the ground and foreground rock texture, I masked everything else with tracing paper, then used an old toothbrush loaded with sepia, Payne's gray, and white gouache of varying amounts to splatter the ground.  The key here is to aim for irregular splatters - big, little, oblong spots, concentrated with pigment, and also watered down.  The result is a believable texture, and not one that looks like paint splatters.

On both the ground and pillars, I painted in cracks to give the place an old, worn feel.  Using a bit of white gouache, I painted along the edges of the cracks to give even more dimension.  I also added more detail to the banners, adding shadow along the top which is being cast by the foliage of the trees they're attached to.  Otherwise, they look like flat shapes of color.


Finished Painting

 Here I add the finishing touches - another layer of raw umber and yellow ochre to the feathers.  I also used a bit of acrylic to glaze even more red on the secondaries, and to deepen the shadows with a very thin layer of black.  This end stage is where I deepen the shadows and intensify the colors, particularly in the grass.  Noticing the banners were still looking flat, I tried to add some waviness and intensify the color.

The foreground pillar was bothering me with how flat it looked, so I added a shadow to the left, which brings more attention to the subject of the painting - the gryphon.

For the first part of this progress post, please see Allegiance Work in Progress Part 1: http://featherseeds.blogspot.com/2012/05/allegiance-work-in-progress-part-1.html

Allegiance - Work in Progress Part 1

First Shadows:

With my preliminary sketches complete, I start by painting in the shadows.  I will go back and refine the shadows, but this is a good way for me to establish the figure.  The light source is bright sun, situated high in the sky, but casting its light on the gryphon's back.  I have to keep in mind how each object will cast shadows, such as the banners on the trees, and the wings of the gryphon.

I use a mixture of dioxazine violet and sepia for the feathers, and a mixture of Payne's gray and sepia for the trees and stones.  The shadows of the columns are a combination of ultramarine violet and raw umber, mixed with a little white gouache.  I also put down a light wash to give the grass some shadow, to avoid flatness when I add color later.


First Washes

For the primary and secondary feathers, I mix ultramarine violet, sepia, and just a touch of ultramarine blue.  At this point, my main focus is to get a smooth was over everything - I'll go back later and work on shadows and details.  The grass is a wet-on-wet combination of green gold, sap green and viridian, with ultramarine violet in the shadows. I went back to give the columns some more definition, with a raw umber/white gouache wash, and more ultramarine violet/raw umber/white gouache for the shadows.

White gouache allows me to keep a color smooth and 'milky'.  This is especially helpful for very low-opacity colors, or colors that granulate.  Certain blues, for example, will look blotchy no matter how careful you are, and that's just the nature of the pigment.  For the background, I'm careful to use just a little pigment with white gouache, to keep the illusion of atmospheric perspective.  This is likely as dark as I will go with the background, with just a few details added later.

Building up Color

I notice the shadows are a bit lacking (particularly on the ground under the gryphon) so I begin to build them up.  It's important to keep an eye on your contrast and how dark you're pushing your pigments.  With watercolor, it's always easier to go from light to dark, instead of trying to lighten after you've gone too dark.  You might think that white gouache, for example, can fix that, but white gouache often fails to get a section as light as if you simply used a light watercolor wash!  White gouache will never be as light as the paper.

The shadows on the ground are mostly a combination of ultramarine violet and sepia, with some Payne's gray (a blueish gray) closer to the gryphon's paws.  Since the sun is so bright, the shadows will be darker and sharper closer to the gryphon's limbs, and fade as they go out.

The next post will look at the rest of the process, and include the final painting.

Allegiance - Sketches

I was looking through an old sketchbook and found a little sketch I'd done while at my table at DragonCon. DragonCon happens to be the highlight of the year for me, because I get to see friends, and because the art show just floods me with inspiration! I also received a lot of feedback about my work, and made it a goal to try more complex poses and compositions.

Thumbnail:

The sketch just kind of came out. I had an image of a gryphon bowing, and instantly the word 'allegiance' came out with the sketch. Now, several months later, I finally got around to proceeding with doing something with the sketch.

First Sketch:

I scanned the sketch and brought it into Photoshop to figure out the composition.  Eventually I started to put in columns...and banners...and suddenly what was just meant to be a single gryphon turned into scene with perspective!

Perspective Sketch:

Though I cropped it out, I originally extended the canvas far to the left so I could find a vanishing point for the lines.  The image was starting to go in a direction I hadn't planned on, but I went along to see how far I could push the composition.  Finally, I transferred it to my illustration board, and finalized the drawing.

Final Drawing:

I didn't want the gryphon to be indoors - it seems any king or queen a gryphon would pledge his or her allegiance to would be one who doesn't cage themselves inside walls.  Then what would the banners hang on?  Trees, of course.  Wild oaks with twisting, unruly roots.  I found there was a problem with the expanse of negative space in that lower left triangle, so I thought of what should go there.

My thinking process began to mingle with the story that was brewing in my head, eventually pushing the composition to be structured (with the columns and straight edges of the banners), with wildness added.  The winding trees, the woodland designs on the banners...perhaps this is a faean 'hall'?  Even still, a gryphon is a wild creature, not a being of straight lines and carved angles.  The gryphon here is a little out of his element with the columns...bowing down but still with a wary eye.

Color Sketch:

I recently received some feedback from a group of very skilled, professional fantasy artists who pointed out that my skies are consistently too dark.  Reading their comments was like light suddenly flicking on - it was something I couldn't quite figure out on my own until someone pointed it out!  Although in this piece the horizon line is almost off the paper (you can see it just barely in the upper left of the background), I had to keep in mind the background would also need to be of low contrast and low saturation.

I am also trying to use less saturated colors overall, and I plan on painting this mostly with watercolor, and using washes of acrylic to really push the values.  I hope the acrylic will also help me achieve the smoothness I usually lack with watercolor.