Lasercut Loveliness

Something I'm hoping to incorporate into my designs is the use of leather that is lasercut and/or etched. My lovely friend offered me some time on the laser cutter, so I jumped at the chance to test out my drawings so far on the leather I had (I bought a whole purple leather hide for £49- bargain!) Here are some of the samples I produced.

Testing the speed and power to achieve the right depth for etching the leather...

Then I used my drawings so far to do etching experiment on some pieces from a book of leather samples I have been given...

I then moved on to pieces of the leather I will be actually using, using a slightly larger scale...

I experimented with cutting as well as etching...

This piece was etched first, then cut out

These pieces were just cuts, it took the laser a couple of goes to cut right through!

From these experiments I feel the etch may be better as a separate piece, perhaps I may take a section of my final repeat design and it it into a large piece that could work as a cushion or wall piece. I really like the cut outline style pieces, perhaps these could work as add on 3D elements of a repeat print. I can't wait to do some more drawing and work on combining it with this exciting technique!