Handmade leather bracelets

Atelierul de istorie and The Proper Leather Studio started the preparations for the end of year activity by creating new cuff bracelets. According to popular models, the decorative motifs selected for the new lot consist of the Dacian war standard, the so-called Draco, Celtic knots and Celtic triquetra. All bracelets are entirely handmade, through a succession of carefully executed steps: cutting, model transfer, incision, tooling, dyeing, finishing. The sides and back are also treated with special substances (creams) that make them comfortable and more resistant to moist. Made of natural vegetable tanned, full grain leather. Dimensions: 17 – 20 cm in length, ca. 3.5 cm. in width. The closing system of choice is with leather lace as it allows for a good fitting on almost all wrist sizes.

 

Pendants

Atelierul de istorie, a handmade company specialized in objects inspired by the Dacian and Roman civilization, has several novelties in the category of pendants. They are made of various materials (clay, leather, gems, bone) and render representations of Decebal (the portrait of the Dacian king as seen on Trajan's Column) and the Dacian draco (half wolf, half snake, employed by the ancient Dacians as their war standard). Others are inspired by Roman jewelry items made of precious stones or are made of exotic materials such as camel bone.

The clay pendants are mold-pressed and the leather pendant is stamped and dyed by hand.

Rebuilding the clay oven at Camp Virtus

Though out "Bread of the ancestors" project did not get funded by Com'On Cluj, we did manage to attract a consistent donation of wood and timber so we can proceed anyway! Thus this Saturday, September 17th, from 12 la 6, we will be at Camp Virtus again for a bit for experimental archaeology. We shall start with building the roof over the oven, as this will protect the structure from rain and too strong sun and will allow it to dry slowly and nicely.

Though not dressed up as Dacians or Roman, we will be glad to receive visitors and explain the experiment. You can volunteer to help, you can donate, or you can just check it out. The other attractions available are bow and arrow target practice and sales organized by our partners from Atelierul de istorie - unique handmade objects inspired by the Dacian and Roman civilization. 

 

Roman elegance raffle

Part of their "Roman elegance" reenactment event at Camp Virtus, members of the Virtus Antiqua NGO are organizing a raffle with thematic prizes: puzzle with gladiator helmet, crepundia-type amulet/charm necklace and handmade snake-shaped leather earrings. These items, inspired by ancient Roman history and artifacts, are offered by the event's partner, Atelierul de istorie.

Don't miss the event on Saturday, September 3rd, at Camp Virtus in Salicea, near Cluj. 

Celtic triquetra leather cuff

The latest product of Atelierul de istorie is an entirely handmade leather cuff bracelet decorated with the Celtic triquetra (triple knot) motif. The term is of Latin origin, from tri- "three" and quetrus "cornered", originally meant "triangle" and was used to refer to various three-cornered shapes. The wristband depicts a series of tooled interlaced knots, ending in vegetal tendrils. In order to stress the interlaced decoration further, all relief parts of the decoration are painted by hand in black against the dark green background. Made of natural vegetable tanned, full grain leather. Dimensions: 17 – 20 cm in length, 3.5 cm. in width.

Lino project II

New afternoon at the studio to finish the latest lino project. The task at hand was to cut the lino prints, to glue them onto the canvas, ass the "mixtion" and then apply the gold leaf. I made two variants - a lazy one, with the goal applied directly to the canvas and the proper one, with a background of reddish acrylic. The second variant presents certain advantages, in that the red beneath confers a brighter glow to the gold foil and possible cracks in the foil look better when revealing red not white.

Collage with linocut prints

Waiting for the special glue to dry, in order to apply the gold foil

Applying the gold leaf

Two draco versions

Variant I - contours with red acrylic added subsequently

Variant II - gold foil against red painted background

New draco linocut project

Today's work has been dedicated to yet another linocut project, again inspired by the ancient Dacian civilization, i.e. their war standard the mythical dragon - half wolf, half dragon or serpent. On Trajan's Column the draco is seen as a wind sleeve, so I have attempted to render it similarly, though a bit more ferocious.

This is an approximation of the final composition. The work should be a collage, with three linocut prints onto canvas, the background with gold leaf. Canvas size 20x20cm.

The tricky part naturally consisted of the left-right flip and the details (teeth). My solution was to break off the drawing into smaller geometric shapes and straight lines, doing the same with the contours (aka the lino board). As the canvas is square, I thought to balance the general composition with two vertical decorative strips.

See my previous draco linocuts and collages for Atelierul de istorie HERE.For the golden background effect, see this painting HERE.

Round leather earrings

Last weekend I experimented complicated leather accessory designs, human masks, three-part Ionic column pendants and other ideas. They proves just that: too complicated to be cool. So I turned to a very simple solution: round earrings with accessories. Each item consists of two leather circles in assorted colors (using as pattern two of the most common Romanian coins) and some recycled glass, sand beads, or bronze decorative elements (leaves). See how you like them and feel free to try.

Or check them out, with full descriptions in Romanian, on my website, Atelierul de istorie. 

variants of color and accessories

brown and grey + three leaves

white and grey and black sand bead

black and white and bronze leaf

tones of black and bronze leaf

black and grey and recycled white glass beads

white and grey and turquoise glass beads

brown and red and red glass beads

From linocut to flags

I've had another special order, of a flag imprinted with the "draco", the ancient war standard of the Dacians. I had made a larger linocut series with the motif, but did not dare use lino print on textile, as they were meant to be used outside, maybe in harsh weather. I have thus made a compromise, with a specialized company printing the model on special flag material. The flags are avaible on my company's site HERE and the original linos HERE.

DRACO head lincout project

The war standard of the feared ancient Dacians, inhabiting generally speaking the territory of present-day Romania, was a mythical hybrid creature, half wolf, half snake (or dragon, hence the name DRACO). One of my recent linocut projects envisaged the creation of prints inspired by this motif (previously discussed on the blog HERE).

Lino block for the DRACO

I made several variants, changing the color of the typographic ink, the color of the paper, and a couple of texture effects (whipping out part of the ink for example) - that have been eventually excluded from the final selection of prints to be framed.

See more color combinations and prices HERE and more about the Dacian draco and its ancient depictions HERE.

Logo and marketing

Establishing a handmade company proved quite a challenge for me as an artist as a historian. Atelierul de istorie clearly needed a logo, so I started making a linocut with the ancient Dacian war standard - the Draco, that is available as a framed printwork. The linoprint is rather large, as I wanted to have all the details in good quality. It ended up in two pieces, as my standard linos were smaller than that :) I was able to find the good in the situation and the Draco head is also available, as a smaller framed print.

Still, it looked too arty and too little as a logo, so I turned to a designer for help. He worked the image and generated the logo, as I though it should be: stylized, colorful, comprehensive.

The final step was to have to logo on several products, besides the handmade ones. We chose cotton shopping bags in natural color and T-shirts with the Draco imprinted through serigraphic transfer.

 

Handmade leather wallet with DRACO

Atelierul de istorie continues with their tooled leather projects inspired by history and popular depictions.

The latest wallets are inspired by the ancient Dacian civilization, namely by the war standard of this people, the half wolf-half snake DRACO. The different variants of such crafted leather wallets to be found on the website, HERE. They are produced for Romania - with one larger pocket for the ID card. Each wallet is entirely made by hand - cutting, tooling, dyeing, sewing, burnishing.

You can now subscribe to the shop's newsletter to keep up with the latest art, reenactment and handmade products.