Achaemenid motifs on glove suede painted in acrylic (left), hide glue with added alum (top) and hide glue without added alum (bottom).
In the first batch (without alum), it took a water-glue-pigment ratio of about 5:3:2 to get the consistency I wanted. I am just now realizing that I scaled the mixture down wrong and added twice as much alum to the second batch as I should have, which accounts for why it was somewhat thicker than the first batch (premature gelling - the alum content was probably around 3-4 percent instead of 1-2).
The thick consistency of the second batch - also probably caused by stirring up as much of the pigment as possible, as I noticed the first time that it tended to settle - meant that it didn't soak into the leather as readily, making for a blobby-looking design. Since these test designs are very small, I think in more practical use it won't be much of a problem. You can try different amounts of water and find what you prefer.
The acrylic paint is very slightly glossy, while the hide paint isn't, but I wouldn't say the acrylic looks too bad. As for flexibility, the acrylic is far more flexible, but I think the hide paint has adhered well enough to the suede that it won't flake off.
Another
issue is that the only pigment I had in the house was raw sienna, which
when added to the glue, gave it a color almost identical to the leather
itself - you can only see the faravahar on the top swatch because the
painted areas reflect light differently. This will make the last test hard to judge; I may try again with some food coloring added just to mark clearly where the paint is to begin with. The last test is to soak the swatches and see whether the paints run; this will hopefully show us how our stuff will handle rain. The acrylic paint manufacturer suggests "air-curing" it for one week before cleaning, so I'll be trying this out in a week and will probably report the results on Friday.
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