Kathleen Koziol

My name is Kathleen Koziol. I currently live at the beach, in Carolina Beach, NC. I have been painting, doing sculpture, making jewelry all my life. I have had two businesses using my artwork. Now I am retired and have been painting watercolors lately. I use mostly alcohol ink on Yupo as my medium.

However, recently I have been wanting an Anuschka purse. It occurred to me to just paint my own! Researching different paints, I came across the name of the Angelus line and your company's name as a source. These photos are of my FIRST attempt at painting on leather. I used a vintage purse, and have a stack now of leather purses and shoes from the thrift stores to work on!

To prepare the leather, I used Angelus Leather Preparer and Deglazer. I used an airbrush, as well as regular watercolor brushes to paint the design. This first attempt, I used only black and white Angelus Acrylic Leather Paints, but I have purchased 15 different colors for future projects. I finished the entire purse with No. 605 Satin Acrylic Finisher, which still gives it a nice glowing shine.

I could not be happier with the products and the result! I actually thought I would have to just throw away my first few attempts, since I had never painted on leather before. I had used an airbrush many, many years ago, but had forgotten most of the technique. The paints performed very well in the airbrush, too. I used the thinner about 1 to 1 in the airbrush.

I plan to practice painting on leather, using vintage purses, shoes (first pair I did has guitars and music painted on them!) and jackets. When I feel I am good enough, perhaps I will graduate to new leather products.. But for now, the thrift shops provide me with an array of leather canvases. I have even considered leather photo albums and Wedding albums.