Image Transfer on Leather

This gif shows a recent transfer process I came up with. First I prepare my image file for a grayscale print. Using a laser printer, I print the image onto non-stick parchment paper. I need to seal the toner or else it will just wipe off or blow away, so I coat with a fine mist of resolene (clear acrylic liquid). After dry, I apply a back paint of choice (in this case I use a metallic copper). The transfer is then cut to shape and placed onto the leather.

Using a sheet of parchment paper to protect the leather and transfer, I then iron the image directly onto the surface of the leather. Care must be used to transfer the image but not damage the leather. After it is adhered I begin the process of releasing the backer sheet. Starting is hard but using a wooden tool I rub the image until a bubble between the paper and the transfer appears. At this point, it releases easily. Be careful to remove any bubbles that could distort the image. Boom! Transfer done!

Studio Tour

Apartment leather studio setup (wip)

Pawns and Planets Paintings

Abstract painting studies on leather (studio tour)

Bubble Painting on Leather

This gif is showing my technique for a bubble texture effect onto unfinished veg tan leather. This bubble mix used Ajax dish soap and milk paint pigment. I use a large mason jar for the mix, lay the leather flat on the table and then blow bubbles using a straw into the mix letting it overflow the jar and fall onto the leather below. I control bubble size by the diameter of the straw and how fast I expel air. I control negative space density by how fast I move the mason jar. The ratios must be spot on for this to work well, so experiment and play. It's your process, so make it as fun as you want.

Creative Streaming. An adventure of circumstance.

4 Years: Sculpture Student
2 Years: Glassworker
6 Years: Custom Display Fabricator
2 Years: Aspiring Luthier
2 Years: Aspiring Artist
5 Years: Exhibit/Event Designer

2 Weeks: Creative Twitch Streamer

Protean @ Twitch.tv/ProteanProjects

I am 33 years old. Age is not a significant fact, but it does provide context for the journey to where I am. And where am I exactly? Surrounded by microphones and cameras invoking my inner Bob Ross for hours every day, and hopefully exploring what design has to offer. 

Life has provided me an opportunity to pursue something that I truly loved to do professionally. I was so shocked by chance that I didn't know where to start or even what “love” has to do with professional. You work, you get paid, you try to keep your original self from becoming something you don't recognize. The grind was my life from college to today, 15 years of surviving a creative professional life. 

Preparing a project of the day. Currently the channels focus is on leatherwork and template design. 

Back to the cameras in front of my face. I have been watching streams for years and never once had the urge to become a broadcaster, but once Bob Ross streams and the creative channel found their way into my follower rotation, I discovered a sliver of creativity that was uniquely mine. The list at the start of this article are all the pursuits I have set out on in the last decade and a half, some overlap some don’t, but they all inform who I am as a designer and give me the tools to take on my next endeavor.

Currently, I am pressing pause from the daily streams. Broadcasting for me will be a structured release of thoughts and processes, success and failures. I want to harbor a community of open and free makers who are striving to understand as many things as possible.

The goal is to find out precisely what it is I want to say to the world. It’s an interesting problem that I want to pursue, and in doing so hopefully, reveal what I love doing as a designer.