Creating Abstract Art with Leather Dyes and Acrylic Paints

Painted brush strokes onto vegetable tanned leather using Roma black dye.

Lately I’ve been working more with leather dyes to create splatter dyed or abstract painted pieces. It’s good messy fun mixed with a little bit of fear that I could be creating a Picasso or ruining some perfectly good leather.

The process of splatter dyeing a piece of natural vegetable tanned leather with alcohol based dyes.

Splatter-dyed Glasses Case using Roma Leather dyes on vegetable-tanned leather.

There are two kinds of leather dye - alcohol based and water based. The alcohol based dyes are considered professional grade as they will penetrate the leather better than the water based dyes. The benefits of using water based dyes are they are easier to dilute and there are no stinky fumes. I often use both types and very much love Roma dyes (alcohol based) I have discovered at Lonsdale Leather in Vancouver B.C.

Detail of the Abstract Art Bag created with painted Roma black dye.

At my last art show, I was very much inspired by seeing so many amazing artists, to create more abstract art.

First attempt at “painting” using only leather dyes onto natural vegetable tanned leather.

The Abstract Flower painting was created using only dyes and was a lot like painting with watercolor. I used a pencil to draw my composition, then began adding dye with a small paintbrush. The colors darken with more brush strokes and tend to bleed into each other. The challenging part was to keep the highlights, which were the areas of unpainted, natural vegetable tanned leather showing through. All in all, I was very pleased with how it turned out!

But we’re not done yet - the next test was to add a little acrylic paint.

Painted Abstract Flowers using leather dyes and acrylic paints onto natural vegetable tanned leather.

Oo, la la! I could be onto something with using both the dyes and acrylics! it was much easier to add highlights and have a bright white or yellow, which I could not easily get with dyes only.

Every hand-dyed piece I create has a coat of Neatsfoot Oil applied, followed by a sealant called Resolene. The color really pops when these two finishes are applied.

I did a little research and found several painters using vegetable tanned leather to create their artworks. With proper care and framing, it should last for many, many years.

I love being able to paint with dyes and create an original work of art that is also a functional, hand-crafted leather good, made to last a lifetime.

The Abstract Art Bag

See a video of how this piece of leather was painted on the Abstract Art Bag’s Shop page.