Cover Up

I tried out leather as a primary option for creating the cover for my artist book. In this case, it's more a pouch than a conventional cover.

One of my early inspiration came from this pouch (in terms of the craftsmanship):

I bought a piece of untreated leather and then had laser etching done, which looked really good. However, because of burning the leather everytime you touched it your hands would get black. Not favourable if you want to touch the pristine white contents of the leather pouch.

To tackle the soot getting on to your hands I decided to get it treated. So with the help of the shop keeper from where I had purchased the leather and showing him what was happening to the leather, I got a "finishing" lacquer. This gave the leather a sort of shine and changed the colour and made it a darker brown. This extra coat helped in getting rid of the soot problem.