Cow Leather

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Unique Mongolia Leather Painting I – Synopsis

Leather painting is one kind of artistic handicrafts with high art values that invented by Mongolia people. Leather picture or leather painting, as its name implies, is a picture painted on the leather, but its production needs dozens of procedures of pure handcraft such as special painting, color up, layer dying, polishing, modeling, embossment and concave-convex and so on.

Leather painting has a very long history, and its origin could be traced back to the nomadic era, and most of leather paintings in that times were leather maps and simple decorative paintings made of sheep skins. After evolved with a long period, leather paintings in nowadays not only have maintained flavors and charms of ancient times, but also mixed with techniques of modern nations, so a piece of selected quality cow leather, through dozens of procedures purely by hand of special painting, color up, layer dying, polishing, modeling, embossing and concave-convex pressing, finally become a hard-won and best gift and an elegant interior decoration.

Mongolia leather picture, which known with its unique sculpture craftwork(carving on cow leather) and bright colorful paint (use the particular paint in Mongolia), featured with characters of strong third dimensions, concave-convex styles, lifelike figures, mild colors and delicate images and never fading, is one kind of gift and indoor decorations that valuable for collection and appreciation.

With high artistic level, leather painting has taken full advantage of its special qualities and textures of natural leather, and showed its particular highlights well as smooth lines, unique composing and describing styles, strong senses of three-dimensional, mild colors well, thus produced a fire-new enjoyment of art for people.

For the time being, most of the people in our country still knew little about leather painting. However, with the economy and the tourism of Inner Mongolia has gained further development, more and more people began to pay attention to and enjoyed with this type of art.

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What is the process used to make a leather (cow) bag, please explain from start to finish! BEST GETS 10 POINTS

Leather Work

Animal skins and hides are treated to preserve them and make them suitable for use.

The term hide is used to designate the skin of larger animals (e.g., cowhide or horsehide), whereas "skin" refers to that of smaller animals (e.g., calfskin or kidskin). The preservation process employed is a chemical treatment called tanning, which converts the otherwise perishable skin to a stable and non-decaying material. Although the skins of such diverse animals as ostrich, lizard, eel, and kangaroo have been used, the more common leathers come from seven main groups: cattle, including calf and ox; sheep and lamb; goat and kid; equine animals, including horse, mule, and zebra; buffalo; pig and hog; and such aquatic animals as seal, walrus, whale, and alligator.

The hides of mammals are composed of three layers: epidermis, a thin outer layer; corium, or dermis, the thick central layer; and a subcutaneous fatty layer. The corium is used to make leather after the two sandwiching layers have been removed. Fresh hides contain between 60 and 70 percent water by weight and 30 to 35 percent protein. About 85 percent of the protein is collagen, a fibrous protein held together by chemical bonds. Basically, leather making is the science of using acids, bases, salts, enzymes, and tannins to dissolve fats and nonfibrous proteins and strengthen the bonds between the collagen fibers.

Leather making or leather work is an ancient art that has been practiced for more than 7,000 years. Primitive man dried fresh skins in the sun, softened them by pounding in animal fats and brains, and preserved them by salting and smoking. Beginning with simple drying and curing techniques, the process of vegetable tanning was developed by the Egyptians and Hebrews about 400 BC. During the Middle Ages the Arabs preserved the art of leather making and so improved it that morocco and cordovan (from Córdoba, Spain) became highly prized leathers. By the 15th century, leather tanning was once more widespread in Europe, and, by the mid-19th century, power-driven machines that performed such operations as splitting, fleshing, and dehairing were introduced. Toward the end of the 19th century, chemical tannage--in particular, the use of chrome salts--was introduced.

The modern commercial leather-making process involves three basic phases: preparation for tanning, tanning, and processing tanned leather. As a preliminary step, a hide must be carefully skinned and protected both in storage and transportation before reaching the tannery. A hide will begin to decompose within hours of an animal's death; to prevent this from happening, the hide is cured by a dehydrating process that involves either air-drying, wet or dry salting, or pickling with acids and salts before being shipped to a tannery.

At the tannery the hide is soaked to remove all water-soluble materials and restore it to its original shape and softness. Hair is loosened usually by a process called liming, accomplished by immersing the hides in a mixture of lime and water; the hair and extraneous flesh and tissue are removed by machine. The hide is then washed, delimed, bated (the enzymatic removal of nonfibrous protein to enhance color and suppleness), and pickled (to provide a final cleansing and softening).

The tanning process derives its name from tannin (tannic acid), the agent that displaces water from the interstices of the hide's protein fibers and cements these fibers together. Vegetable tanning, which is the oldest of tanning methods, is still important. Extracts are taken from the parts of plants (such as the roots, bark, leaves, and seed husks) that are rich in tannin. The extracted material is processed into tanning liquors, and the hides are soaked in vats or drums of increasingly strong liquor until they are sufficiently tanned. The various vegetable-tanning procedures can take weeks or months to complete. The end result is a firm, water-resistant leather.

Mineral tanning, which uses mineral salts, produces a soft, pliable leather and is the preferred method for producing most light leathers. Use of this method can shorten the tanning period to days or even hours. Chromium salt is the most widely used mineral agent, but salts from aluminum and zirconium are also used. In mineral tanning the hides are soaked in saline baths of increasing strength or in acidic baths in which chemical reactions deposit salts in the skin fibers.

Oil tanning is an old method in which fish oil or other oil and fatty substances are stocked, or pounded, into dried hide until they have replaced the natural moisture of the original skin. Oil tanning is used principally to make chamois leather, a soft, porous leather that can be repeatedly wetted and dried without damage. A wide variety of synthetic tanning agents (or syntans), derived from phenols and hydrocarbons, are also used.

After the basic tanning process is completed, the pelts are ready for processing, the final phase in leather production. The tanned pelt is first thoroughly dried and then dyed to give it the appropriate color; common methods include drum dyeing, spraying, brush dyeing, and staining. Blended oils and greases are then incorporated into the leather to lubricate it and to enhance its softness, strength, and ability to shed water.

The leather is then dried to about 14 percent moisture, either in the air or in a drying tunnel or by first stretching the leather and then air or tunnel drying it. Other less frequently used methods include paste and vacuum drying. The dried leather is finished by reconditioning with damp sawdust to a uniform moisture content of 20 percent. It is then stretched and softened, and the grain surface is coated to give it additional resistance to abrasion, cracking, peeling, water, heat, and cold.

The leather is then ready to be fashioned into any of a multitude of products. This leather work includes shoes and boots, outer apparel, belts, upholstery materials, suede products, saddles, gloves, luggage and purses, and recreational equipment as well as such industrial items as buffing wheels and machine belts.

Bobby Sherrod played for 1938 national champion Horned Frogs
When Bobby Sherrod played football, leather helmets and two-way players were in.

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