How to Make Rawhide Art - Rawhide Buffalo mold

Hello there. On behalf of Expert Village.com, my name is Candace Copeland. And I am here today to share one of my art passions: the art of working with rawhide. The next challenging one, which is probably the most challenging that I ever did, is the buffalo. Again, there is a nice little hole that I really worked around to where I would work with what was. And a friend lent us his bronze buffalo, so this was done over a bronze. So it was really tough to get this molded. He is open under here, and as you can see, there is real buffalo hair in here. Just the technicalities of putting this around and not being able to see that he was open underneath was, without a doubt, a challenge. And so then after I did get him completed, I thought, they're always kind of rummaging around, and they're rolling in the dirt. So I did him with a bit of a spray to make him really look like he was an old, crusty buffalo. Even the hide, this particluar hide is antelope. I can see it by the hair that is left on it, and an old piece of Montana driftwood. So this is definitely home on the range. And this is another one, and a little bit different kind. This is out of deer hide, so it's a little bit lighter. Got a little different kind of detail in it. Put his little beard, got some real buffalo hide on him there. And again, on a wonderful piece of driftwood from the northwest. And just the little bit of his coat. If you recall in the 80's, when a white buffalo calf was born, that was a really great sign of good things to come. I kind of kept him with his white coat. Just a hint of - they do turn brown, even if they're born white, they will turn brown eventually. They're really a great omen. So this is kind of to celebrate the birthing of white buffalo.