Using the Pear Shader

As with many of the leather stamps that are available to the leather craftsman, there are many pear shaders available for purchase. Pear shaders come in many in sizes, shapes, and patterns. It depends on whether you how much money you want to spend and if you want to use the same exact stamps that the pattern designer used. Remember, some of the people who designed the tooling patterns also designed some of the tools that are used on those patterns. Do I think that this is wrong? Absolutely not! If I were creative enough to draw a pattern and make my own new stamps for it, I would do it, especially if I could make an extra buck or two.

The pear shader can add some very interesting effects to a pattern that carved into the leather. I like to use the pear shader sometime after I have done the beveling on a pattern but before I use the other stamps. I do this because I believe that it gives more prominence to the visual effect of the stamp. I guess that in other words, it makes it show up a lot better. I especially like using the veiner after I have used the pear shader because it adds a little more texture to flower petals.

The pear shader, shown below, can be used in many ways to add different effects. The photos that follow will hopefully demonstrate how it can be appropriately tilted, slanted, leaned, and feathered to achieve the desires effect. Please bear in mind that the photos that follow will be a little scary to some because the pear shader appears much larger than it really is. (Please excuse my feeble attempt to be humorous.) I managed to get a great close-up photo of ways that I had used the stamp. I cropped each usage of the stamp into an individual photo for you to see here.

Pear Shader - Full Impression

This is a complete stamp impression of the same crosshatched pear shader that was suggested for purchase in an earlier post. The leather used is approximately 8-9 ounce that has been in my scrap bin for many years. Leather is one of those things that just seems to hang around for a long time, kind of like the not so favorite long lost cousins. However, back to the pear shader, you can see how this stamp can add a great deal of texture to your design.

As with most of the stamps that you will use, the pear shader will probably never used in its entirety on a single impression. Most of the time, you will find that you will want to lean it a little one direction or another to get the effect that is the most desirable. In some cases, you might find that you want to use the wider end of the stamp because it seems to fit a little better. Keep in mind that you do not necessarily need to make the stamp impression fit the shape of the leaf. I will include a photo towards the end of this post showing a curvy line with various ways that the pear shader can be used.

It might be a little hard to put the individual photos in the perspective you might see on a pattern. The curvy line that I just mentioned will help with that. The photo below shows how the impression of the pear shader will look if it is tilted back at anywhere close to a ten-degree angle. I actually do not know if that it an accurate estimation or not, I never use a protractor to check my work. Something that you will notice when you tilt a stamp is that the darker portion will be in the direction of the tilt.

Pear Shader - Tilted Back

Looking at the photo above you can see that the upper portion of the impression is darker than that toward the bottom. Also, this photo shows the full width of the heel or the wider end of the stamp. I generally do not want to have the full width of the stamp showing unless I am working on a larger area  on the edge of a leaf or petal.

Depending on the pattern and the size of the outer curves of a leaf, it might be more desirable to tilt the stamp back and to the left. Doing this will make the leaf look as if it is curled somewhat downward on the side of the leaf that is away from you. The photo below shows the effect that is gained by tilting or leaning the shaft of the stamp back and slightly to the left. From the upper left to almost the midpoint of the impression it is a little darker. Notice that the right side of the impression is lighter.

Pear Shader - Tilted Back Left

Applying the previous consideration to the photo below you can tell what will appear when the pear shader is tilted to the back and to the right. It is easy to tell that this impression was made with the stamp tilted to the right and back because the back right side of the impression is darker. Also, this photo shows how important it is to make sure that all of the moisture is allowed to distribute itself evenly throughout the flesh side of the leather. If you compare this photo to the previous one you will see that more of the impression is darker. This could also occur because the stamp was stuck with more force than the previous one.

Pear Shader - Tilted Back Right

In previous posts I have probably referred to the heel or the toe of a stamp, with the heal being the back end or the toe being the front. In this case, the heel is the wider portion of the stamp and the toe is the narrower tip. It does not matter what you call the ends of the stamp, it only matters here where I am trying to explain them. In addition, I do not want to have too many lapses from one description to the other without giving you an idea to what I am referring. Besides that, the word toe is shorter than front of the stamp.

The photo below shows what the pear shader looks like if the stem of the stamp is leaned toward the toe and struck with the mallet. If you look the impression left with this style of striking the stamp, you can see that the area at the toe or front of the stamp is somewhat darker. Notice that the color of the leather gets lighter as you look toward the bottom. This is because there was less pressure on this area when the stamp was struck. I can see that there is a bit of an issue for me when I look at this photo. I got too much of the whole stamp in the photo. Generally, I would like only about half of the surface of the stamp showing. If this were actually something that I were making for a customer I would have feathered it out and made it a little longer.

Pear Shader - Tilted Forward

The photo below shows how the impression of the tip of the pear shader would look if the stamp was leaned toward the toe and to the left. It is a little difficult to tell from this photo, but the darker area is toward the top of the photo and slightly darker on the left side. You will also notice there is a band that runs slightly below the top part of the toe. This could be from a number of things, such as the moisture content of the leather, a slight chatter after the stamp was struck, a slightly sharp area on the face of the stamp, or a whole host of other things. If you notice this happening on a regular basis, you might want to check your pear shader closely to make sure that you do not have a scratch on it.

Pear Shader - Tilted Forward Left

Below you can see an example of how the impression of the stamp would look if you were to tilt it back and to the right. To be honest with you, it is difficult to tell that the impression is a little bit deeper to the back and to the right. I can also see another band running slightly under the tip in this impression. My thoughts are after I see this a second time is that it is possible that the grain of the leather is torn a little bit because the leather could be a little too dry. If it is too dry it could cause the grain to tear a little rather than stretch when the stamp is struck.

Pear Shader - Tilted Forward Right

The photo below has the examples that I spoke of earlier in this post about having a curly line with the pear shader used. Here is what the numbering indicates: 1) The full toe of the pear shader was used to make this impression. 2) The full heel of the stamp was used to make this impression. 3) The heel was used with the stamp tilted back and leaning to the right. 4) I believe this one was supposed to represent back and to the left but I may have struck it too hard. 5) The the full heel of the stamp was used to make the initial impression and then feathered out to almost nothing. This effect is accomplished by striking the stamp with more force near the edge of the leaf and then just lightly tapping the stamp until you get the impression stretched out as long as you would like.

Pear Shader Sample on Leaf or Curvy Line

Again, there are a lot of different pear shader sizes, shapes and with different patterns cut into them. Each pear shader may have been designed to be used on a particular pattern and it may not be necessary to have to make the leather look like a piece of art. Just like some of my other stamps, I have my favorites and I have those that I bought because I thought I had to be true to the original pattern. It does not matter what stamps you use on a pattern to complete it.  What matters the most is that you enjoy what you are doing and you make the design your own.

Have fun!

Using the Veiner

One of the leather stamps that I have used a lot over the years is the veiner. I have more of them than I need and they range in sizes and design. I would have to say that my favorite veiners are the ones that are serrated or scalloped on the bottom edge of the curve. That being said, there are some of the scalloped veiners that I am not enamored with either. I find that some of them are harder to incorporate into my patterns or the way in which I would like to stamp the pattern.

As I said, I have more veiners than I need. Some of them I acquired by trade or because I let someone talk me into buying them because it was what was used in the original pattern. It is nice to have the different stamps because they do come in handy once in a great while. To show you all of the veiners and extra stamps that I have in my stash would take a long time and a lot of photography. Let us just say that I have three wooden racks that are mostly filled, with one plastic rack with a few stamps that I acquired by trading. The last count for me was seventy stamps and that did not include my last trade from a few years ago. You know if I went a yard or garage sale, I would probably buy more stamps if they were something that I did not have or if they were a good quality stamp

Now to get back on track, the veiner can be used in much the same as a camouflage stamp. A veiner makes a good stop for flower petals or on leaf segments as shown in the photo displayed below. When I use a veiner as a stop on a flower petal, I like to make the line being carved towards the center of the flower a little shorter than normal. That will allow me to place the point and the curved edge of the stamp more accurately. Looking at this photo you will see that the inside or concave edge of the stamp is right next to the line and that the tip of the stamp extends a short distance from the end of the carved line. If I were going to stamp the line between the left petal and the top-center petal, I would seek to make the lines appear to be the same length to give the design a little more conformity.

Veiner used as a line stop between top and right flower petal

The only one line on this flower that has the veiner used as a stop is the “complete” line between the top-center petal and the petal on the right. The other lines are left plain for the demonstration of this use of the veiner. Normal practice for me would be stamp the center of the flower with either the seeder stamp or the one that I generally use on this particular pattern. I do not have an example of this stamp to show you because I want to keep things simple at this point and I do not want you to run out and purchase many extra leather stamps that you might not ever use.

The other thing that I would like you to notice in the previous photo is the radiating, light veiner impressions on the leftmost and the upper petals. It might be difficult to see the individual impressions but I wanted to give you an example of this use. This is not the best example that I might have to show you for this usage but it is what I completed. The way I like to do this is to use my pear shader on the petals and then follow up with the veiner tapping it lightly a couple of times and then just taper it off to nothing. On most flowers, I start toward the center and move to the outside with ever decreasing the strength with each tap of the stamp. Depending upon the size of the flower being stamped, I will use between three and six impressions of the stamp on a petal. A lot of it depends on the mood I am in and what I think will look the best on the flower. It also depends a lot on what I think looks the best from previous experience. In other words, practice!

One of the most common uses for a veiner stamp is to add texture to the center of a leaf in a very similar manner to that of the camouflage stamp. I would have to say that if you looked at the two stamps together you might consider the veiner a stretched out camouflage stamp or maybe just the opposite, the camouflage stamp is a scrunched up veiner. No matter how you look at them, they are both very important to the finishing of a hand-tooled project. I like the way that both of these stamps add their special texture to the design.

The photo below shows how the veiner has been used to represent the stamping on the center of a leaf. When I do this, I like to bevel the side of the line that the veiner will be used on, especially if I am trying to get the effect on the other side that the center of the leaf as if it were curled up a little. I used to bevel both sides of the center line on the leaves but I decided either that I liked it with just one side done or because I got too lazy to bevel the other side and thought it looked okay. 

Veiner use on leaf center line

When you look at the line in the photo above, you will noticed that it is curved. At the bottom of the line, the first stamp is at an angle of just a little less than ninety degrees to the left from it. As I stamped each impression, I twisted the stamp a little to give it a sharper angle towards the line. I also tilted the stamp toward the line so that I would get only half of the stamp to be visible. I will admit that I do see a bit of a glitch on this sample that I prepared for this blog post. I did not keep the spacing equal between the stamps and if I wanted to nitpick about it, I probably did not get the angles of the stamps all properly incremented either.

Another element of many leather patterns is the whorl. This name more or less indicates that an object, whether it be plant or animal, is in somewhat of a spiral. An example of an animal that would have a reasonable facsimile would be the curled shell of a snail. In other words, it is coiled or appears to be coiled.

The photo below shows a whorl that has been stamped with the veiner only. Notice that the veiner is used on the outer edge of the whorl. The first stamp impression is a little less than a ninety-degree angle to the edge. Each succeeding stamp is placed at a little sharper angle to the edge of the whorl. Done properly, the whorl can be an attractive addition to a pattern. By the way, this one is not perfect and I will explain why below the photo.

Veiner used to add texture to a whorl

In looking at the way I stamped the whorl, I probably would have done it a little differently. I like to start at the bottom and work my way around closer to the center. I probably should have started the stamp a little farther up on the edge from where the first one was placed. I also did not go far enough around the top portion of the whorl because I let the angle of the stamp get too flat too soon. I believe that this bit of a pattern would look much better if I had been able to go farther around the whorl.

Even though I made a mistake that is noticeable to me, others might not see it. I am like most people; I am my own worst critic. One thing that I can say that I did right on this one is that I have the point of the veiner lined up with the edge of the whorl. It is my opinion that this the proper way to stamp the whorl. I have seen some designs where the artist has put the point to the inside of the spiral.

One more thing about the whorl in the photo shown above: I would probably use decorative cuts to make this whorl look as if it had it been planned that way. In other words, I would use the art of deception to make it look better. Truthfully, covering my mistakes to make them look as if they were a part of the design comes naturally for me now. I do not think that it is cheating or dishonest because it is the artist’s choice to finish the design in his or her way.

One last photo below shows one way that a veiner can be used to create a pattern on leather. It is very simple to do and in the right place, it can be very eye pleasing. Sometime you might find that you would like to put a border on a project on which you used a stamp such as the basket weave. The veiner may be valuable in this usage as well. No matter what kind of a leather pattern you are working on, it is a good idea to practice how you are going to stamp a particular portion of a pattern.

Veiner used to create a pattern or design

Remember; let me know if you have any questions or comments. I am more than happy to be of assistance if I can.

Have fun!