How Leather Carving Works

The swivel-knife at work, the primary tool used in leather carving. The "swivel" helps to achieve graceful curves.

A fully finished, hand carved wallet.

Leather carving is the process of cutting through the outer layers of the hide to create permanent lines. These cuts can then go on to be embellished with tooling stamps for greater effect. Some mass manufactured goods have their designs imprinted with one large, purpose built stamp in a large hydraulic press. This is usually called embossing, or sometimes debossing. While there are ways to hot stamp chrome tanned leathers, only full-grain, vegetable tanned leather can be carved in this particular way.

A pencil drawing on a notepad cover before carving.

As convenient as it would be, a small maker like myself cannot possibly make a stamp like that for every project, instead I create my engravings by hand, line by line. This means that each piece is iterated upon the previous and my work is allowed to improve over time as I learn more about this unique material and art form.

Some designs I draw in pencil directly on the leather before engraving. This is great for organic shapes that could be a little different every time without ruining the effect of the design.

This book jacket was commissioned by the author to match the book cover. This sort of precise recreation of an original is the ideal use case for the multi-layer tracing method.

For other, more complex designs, such as those featuring text, there is a more precise way to work. First I will make a design on paper, then I trace that design onto a sheet of thin plastic, and then, using a blunt, metal stylus, I trace through the plastic onto the leathers surface, leaving an imprint I can use as a guide for carving.

However my guidelines got there, I then take my swivel-knife and follow those lines, taking care to cut the right depth, at the right angle, and always in confident, graceful lines.

A notepad cover with a caduceus and two headed eagle made for a doctor.

If I stop here, we have what I call flat carving. This can be beautiful on its own and I have sold many items made this way. The book jacket above, as well as the caduceus and double headed bird engraving shown here would be flat carvings. I can take these carvings further into full low-relief using a variety of stamps to embellish the lines I have carved and create the effect depth by knocking down the leather on one side of a line but not the other.

The stamps use to turn a flat carving into full low-relief. Each has a specific purpose.

Done carefully, this can create the impression of many layers rising and falling over one another. This layering effect lends itself quite naturally to the sort of traditional western floral work that I specialize in.

Below is a gallery of a variety of hand carved works in a variety of styles and degrees of detail. You can view my hand carved items currently available for sale by clicking here.