Here’s the cover I’m doing for my altered book. I used a piece of vegetable cured leather, 4-5oz.  I wanted to have the look of cord-bound book, so I wrapped plastic over the book (to protect it from water) then wound it with twine. I got the leather wet and stretched it over the twine to get that design.Â
Since IÂ put the water only on the spine, that’s the only part that really stretched.Â
When that dried, I painted one side with water and tooled a design into it.Â
When that dried, I did the same to the other side.Â
Tomorrow, the painted version.
Mistakes I learned from:
When you cut into the leather, it leaves a narrow groove that the paint doesn’t want to go into. I had the right idea of putting india ink into the groove, but it would have been better had I done that before painting the acrylic.
When I trimmed the leather to match the book, I hadn’t taken the plastic off. This made the lines a little off, and the leather got cut too short on one side.