Carving

When I started work as a kid, my dad gave me a leather wallet (not that money stayed in for long) the cover of which was covered in a carved image of a cowboy rounding up the herd. I always wondered just how it was made and after studying Al Stohlmans work soon learnt it was not so much carving as it was imprinting the leather with various small tools to push the leather down and modelling tools to achieve the finer detail.

The image on the left and those below display some of the pictures I have created on leather, one being sueno stone.

Walking Staff's

During my journey with leather, I mainly created items for the western riding scene here in the UK which apart from making the saddles, involved alot of rope work and braiding.

These two subjects are immense within themselves and my tuition here was helped greatly by Ron Edwards whose easy to follow books explains the complicated in a simple way, including this top knot. The only thing I really make now is the walking staff's as shown above using the argentinian braiding method of fid work where I can braid different patterns & names down the length of the stick.