Fur and hides in the fine arts

The method of producing a skin painting of desired design which comprises the steps of:

• stapling a buffalo hide to a vertical surface,
• applying heat to hairs in selected areas of the hide to embrittle the hair thereon,
• utilizing a cutting tool with a curved edge varying progressively in curvature for enabling precisely varying and selected outlined segments to be formed at the margin of bare skin and hair by carving away the embrittled hairs from a selected area of the hide to form a bare surface area along outlines to form boundaries of selected portions of the desired design,
• applying acrylic pigment to the bare surface area in simple geometrical configurations such as triangles, circles and rectangles to form portions of the painting within such boundaries to produce a composite picture of applied pigment and hair retained on the skin, the configuration of boundaries being along lines representing tribal designs,
• cutting a stiff backing sheet with an outline following the outline of the hide,
• gluing the hide to the backing sheet,
• surrounding the hide with wooden frame members,
• piercing holes in the hide and backing sheet along the outline thereof,
• driving horseshoe nails into the frame members at points spaced from the pierced holes in the hide and backing sheet,
• passing a thong through the holes and looping the thongs around the horseshoe nails to mount the hide within the frame members, whereby a mounted tribal painting is produced from natural hides and protected from drying out, the boundaries between hair and portions of the hide from which hair has been removed being either carved away from elements of the design or carved into it so that either acrylic paints or hair remaining on the hide will form the desired element of the design.