I wanted to take you through a more intimate step by step Journey, in the cultivation & creation of one of my Rare Leather Flowers. Not just a simple wallet, but animated with life, nurtured by hand, every cut, stitch & brushstroke breathing the breath of life into it.
This one is one of my favorites, I will leave you with its name at the End, so that it is fitting with the Chronology of the Pictures.
The first photo is one of the Design etched with my small LaserPrinter into the Leather itself. This ensures that the main motif of the Design is permanently carved into the Leather, while I use professional grade leather paints & top coat to cover the painting, I do not know how many years of wear & tear the paint will resist & in case at some point it should rub or flake off, at least the contours of the Design are not lost.
I work in many layers for the painting itself, unless I am actually starting with a white Leather, I usually paint a base coat of white, this helps make the later layers of color pop more saturated. Then I slowly paint my first layers of color, let it dry & layer more color until I am satisfied.
At this stage you begin to see all the Parts of the Wallet coming together. The First 2 White with Neon Pink Edge Slots & The Gray with Eye Slots. In The Next picture, you see all elements together. Everything painted & ready to glue & then stitch together. The Glue is merely there to hold the project together so as to be able to poke the stitching holes evenly & accurately, it is a very mild glue. Very forgiving if you accidentally glue a piece badly together, since it comes apart with very little effort even when dried.
So first the 2 White Card Slots were stitched at their base, you can see in the next picture where I mean more or less if you look at the reverse side of the leather. Then the top 2 card slots are glued on top & stitched along the top.
Before continuing to stitch along the base of the cardslot(sides of the wallet) & bottom we first need to glue the outer portion of the wallet to the inner portion of the wallet. We will be stitching along the same path as the glue in the pictures below
Finally after everything is stitched together, the wallet receives its edge paint, I start with white leather edge paint, until my edge is smooth, 2-3 Layers, & in this case I did a light coat of leather neon acrylic paint on top before sealing it with top-coat for the edge.
This piece I baptized "Promethean Raven"
"The Promethean Raven, the One who stole the Fire from the Gods, not for himself, but to share it with Humanity. The Ancient Command: "May every Soul flower a Sovereign God/dess."
I leave you with my final shots of the piece, these are my product shots which I took to feature it on my Website Boutique