Oakleave templates

[oakleave]

During the last engrave in I talked with a few engravers regarding making some oakleave templates for engraving oakleave designes, similar to the scrool templates available. I like to see if there would be interest in the engraver comunity for this kind of templates. Please let me know if you would be interesteed or have some interesting oakleave designes.
Have a great day
Bernie

 

[Dale Hatfield]

Bernie
I would be interested. Pending on just exactly what you mean by templates. My results with scroll templates are unsuccessful at best. As well as what style of Oak leaf you used.
Post a few pics of what you might have in mind.
Thanks
Dale

 

[dlilazteca]

I'm interested

Carlos De La O III

 

[monk]

i know it's close to christmas, but i'm gonna be bad anyway ! why not just learn to draw them?. go to the google image button, there's probably a couple thousand images there from which to study. just my attempt to be helpful.unless you're an absolute newbie to this art, i advise against using templates. their use in no way improves upon your skill level. some time ago, using my laser, i created all manner of scroll spines, as well as many different sizes of each. guess what- i don't like using them.they do show what is supposed to be, but not how to generate your own.

 

[mitch]

hi Bernie, oak leaves are not my style, but i will say that you should make sure you are studying good examples as there is a lot of very bad oak leaf engraving out there (this advice holds for any style, btw). my recommendations would be to study Weldon Lister's and Heinrich Frank's.

 

[Red Green]

Hi,

I hope you don't mind my offering my opinion on the use of templates or 'cookie cutters'. Humans can discern very discreet nuances, a pleasing perfection is usually not any perfect singularity, but a blend of harmony and displacement, from music to sculpture and painting. While it is possible to create art with cookie cutters it is a far greater challenge for the artist to express and others to appreciate. That being said I believe templates could play a helpful role in for engraving when used for preliminary placement of objects in general layout when designing complex images or multiple panels of relatively similar work as they have been used for this purpose for centuries. If however you are intending decorative craftwork templates are very acceptable as they fit the craft style of work quite well.

Bob

 

[LVVP]

I'm interested, too

 

[dogcatcher]

There are a lot of species of oak trees, with a lot of different shaped leaves. Within a 10 mile radius of my place I can find several different species and the leaves from one to the other species will be a little different. For my woodcarving I use artistic license for the shape that is closest to what I think will look best on the current project.

With that said, I am a sucker for templates and gadgets, I probably would get a set of templates if the price was right. I like using the scroll template, and I only have had them for a couple of weeks but I think it has helped me with my freehand scrolls. Practice makes perfect, but a good guide to start with is better than setting bad habits.

 

[Ron Spokovich]

I agree with Monk in that you should learn to draw freehand, as there's no substitute and the masters do just that. The ancient engravers probably didn't have templates, unless they used various sizes of shirt buttons, if anything at all. I have various templates of scrolls, circles, squares, hexes, ellipses, and a few other things that come in handy for a basic layout. If some oak leaf templates in a multitude of sizes, in a frosted green template such as Alvin offers, and also available in various shapes, I would be interested in such. Again, there's no substitute for freehand work.

 

[rayf24]

I'm interested keep us updated
Ray

 

[Dan W]

I would be interested too. Just having the templates on hand to study would be helpful.
Dan

 

[Mike Fennell]

As Mitch and Monk suggested, drawing them is the best way to start. Oak leaves are easy compared to other things we draw. I believe Ron Smith's version is one of the most graceful oakleaf patterns I have yet seen.

 

[Jesse.beckham]

Oak leaves are a popular style of leather carving. There are several how to book for the leather application, if you wanted to jump right into trying to draw then, you could easily pick up some of the leather books that give a lot of help. Or you could even trace, scan, and resize for a template. Just my two cents.

 

[rmgreen]

A search on the internet and this site has some and there are others.

https://www.google.com/search?q=oak...0UsGANI3loASBNw&ved=0CCsQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=946

Most Germanic engraving uses the shape of the English(Royal) Oak leaf. Leather tooling uses a oak leaf of a different specie in all that I have observed. There are many shapes and sizes of the oak leaf and the acorn that goes with the particular specie.

Roger

 

[oakleave]

Thank you for your feedback. Yes I agree it is much better to have the art skills and draw designes. This is easier said than done and I am still struggeling with my scrolles and fund the templates very usefull. Sometimes I spent days on designing without doing any engraving. Since I am not a retiree or independent wealty I have to generate sone kind of revenue. A template can help to fill a shape which you like to engrave faster. Yes it will not please a real artist when you use templates, but how many customers are educated??? Many do not even know the differences between hand engraving, laser engraving or rolling. For an engraving student there is so much to learn in the field of drawing and graver control. Every little bit that can make the learning easier or faster could help and I like to help other engraving student who like leaves and flowers.
Thank you for your inputs.
Bernie.

 

[Marrinan]

live oaks don't have oak leaves at all just eggcorns

 

[oakleave]

Thank you for your input. On my way from MD to FL and back I had a lot of time to think. I was also thinking how to make templates user friendly and adopt new technologies.
I am thinking about creating a digital libary which could be easyly downloaded and the objects could be enlarged or shrunk to fit the canvas e.g a knive or gun. Any sugestions how I could do this?
Thank you
Bernie

 

[Willem Parel]

I am not very familiar with those kind of things but for a digital libary Dropbox looks to me a good thing.

 

[monk]

if i were to do this, i'd simply "burn" them on thin gauge plastic. the dropbox thingy is a good idea. you could post a ton of stuff there at no expense. don't be misled by my former post- my only negative in their use is so easy to use, no effort, one can become addicted to the concept. i do use pantograph templates for some things- for repeat work on knives, lighters, all kind of stuff. or the traceout can be hand engraved over. for me it's a time saver for quick work. never for more serious work