Pear Shader, Camouflage, and Veiner Stamps

With the background completed it is time to begin using the other stamps to finish the design. In completing this project I used all of the recommended stamps to give an example of how the stamps are used in the various areas of the design.

The first stamp that I used is the pear shader to give some texture or definition to the flower petals and the leaves. Some may think that the pear shader is not really pear shaped but more oval. It does not matter how you look at it, the name was there a long time before I started doing leather work.

Looking at the photo below you can see the areas that there are various dark spots on the flower petals and various places on the leaves. If you look closely at the petals on the flowers you will see that I used the stamp in the areas that are curved outward. I leaned the stamp back so that I would not get the whole stamp on the flower. Leaning the stamp when striking it with you mallet will give it more of a blended look. If you hold the stamp straight up and down the whole stamp will show and it will be necessary to do try to blend it in.

Camouflage stamp used on the carved pattern

You will notice that there is a number “1” on the lower right-hand petal. This is an example of, for the lack of a better word, the blended effect of the pear shader. You can see that the impressions in the leather extend more toward the center of the flower. To do this, I first tilted the stamp a little back to get a deeper impression in the leather. I then straightened it up some and then moved it a little and tapped it with the mallet. I repeated the process of moving the stamp and tapping it a little lighter each time until I got the desired effect.

One of the interesting things about using leather stamps is that you do not necessarily need to hold them flat or straight up and down to use them. A pear shader can be tilted to the left or right, backwards or forwards, or however you want to do it. In most of the tooling/stamping that I do with a pear shader I use the back of the stamp the most. I like the effect that the heel of the stamp provides when I use it. Sometimes a curve on a leaf or petal is too small for the heel of the stamp, so I use the point of the stamp in the same manner as I would the heel.

If you go online and look at the leather stamps that are available, you will find that there are a lot of different pear shaders that are available. There are shaders that are longer or wider and some that have different patterns on them. The nice thing about the different stamps is that they will allow the user to add more textures or effects to the design. Also, just because the photo-carve pattern shows a different stamp than you have does not mean that you need to buy that stamp. You are the artist and you can establish your own style.

The next stamp that I used on this project was the camouflage. (This photo also shows the veiner. I do not have a photo of just the camouflage stamp.) It can be used in many different areas of a pattern to give different effects and textures to the design. Looking at the photo below you can see in the area of number “1” that I used the camouflage stamp on the right side of the center of the leaf. Number “2” shows how I used the camouflage to texture the petal from the center to about two-thirds of the way out. I tried to tap the stamp a little more lightly with each move so that it would more or less fade out. (I really do not like this effect.) At number “3” you can see that I tapped the stamp only once, which is what I did on the other three petals.

Camouflage and Veiner stamps used - check the descriptions for each number

In the photo above you can see that I used the veiner, shown in number “4” which is on the left-hand side of the leaf. As with the camouflage stamp I leaned it a little to get only a partial impression of the stamp. In most cases, you will find that using the whole surface of a stamp, such as the veiner; will cause it to overlap other areas of the pattern. The idea behind using the veiner and camouflage stamps in the center of the leaf is to give it texture as well as some vertical dimension. In other words, these stamps can help make a leaf or another part of your pattern look as if it has more depth.

As well as using the veiner to give more texture to the center of leaves, it can be used in other areas to give a bit of a finishing touch to a carved line. Number “5” in the photo above shows where I used a veiner at the end of the line to finish it or “stop” it. To do this, turn the leather so that you can see the line. Place the stamp so that the inside of the curve is even with the carved and beveled line. Lean the stamp towards the end of the line. In the case of number “5” I used the right end of the stamp and leaned it in that direction. If you look closely at the pattern that I tooled, you can see other places that I used the veiner as a stop.

Something that I like to do with the veiner that I did not show in this photo is to use the veiner on the petals of a flower. In a similar manner to the example of the camouflage stamp radiating out from the center of the flower, the veiner may be a more effective stamp to use to achieve this effect. I will try to get a photo of a carved flower using the veiner radiating out from the center in a later post.

One last thing, I decided after I had taken the photo of the camouflage stamp that I had missed a spot that I should have probably have used the stamp. Number “6” marks the area that I went back and used the pear shader later in the process. That is one of the cool things with doing leather work, you can go back and add some more texture if you choose.

Have fun!