W
hen I caught up with Annie in April,
she had just returned from a workshop
she’d taught in Texas called “Tooling
Realistic Portraits: Buffalo Bill Cody.” She
shows me the side-by-side practice “Bills”
she had made to prepare for the class.
“I’ve done this face like eight times,” she
chuckles, and nitpicks at different details
in her 3” x 5” renderings that don’t quite
match the photograph. She points out other
2D portraits on her desk — “This is my
daughter, this is my great-grandmother…”
There is a landscape piece of leather not
more 5” x 10” on which she tooled and
molded a copy of a family photo from the
late 19th century. “I did it as a practice
piece, but someone wanted to buy it, which
is nice…” The natural colors of the leather
are only slightly augmented with shadows
and highlights to give the faces a bit more
depth and relief, and to leave as much of
the leather uncovered as possible.
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ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE