One of the perks of volunteering at an Iron Age farm, a gift of Bronze Age (roughly 3,500 years old) oak timber from Testwood Lake, Southampton. Well, it's most probably oak although I think the bridge from which this apparently came was made up of other woods too.
"While carrying out what they call a watching brief, staff from Wessex Archaeology came across fascinating evidence of early society, including part of the earliest bridge ever definitely identified in England, dating to the Middle Bronze Age, c1,500BC."
One man, who is a bronze metalworker at the Farm, apparently got the wood from the excavation and he gave them to a volunteer. This volunteer shared some of it and that's how I acquired them. I can only obviously take their word that it is how old they say it is, but I believe them. I can't be sure if it's oak though, as oak's my second favourite tree, but oh well. Remarkable that wood can survive for so long in the right conditions.
Another utensil, my first fork, carved out of hazel and coated with walnut oil. I still have to apply a few more coats over the next couple of days, but this is essentially finished. That's three spoons, a spatula and a fork.
I thought I'd try my hand at a small project today just to cover Sunday afternoon, so I made this little Birch bark matchbox/tray. It's a simple a rectangle of bark folded into a box shape and held together by two thin sticks. It was a little tricky as the bark was dry and very near to tearing on multiple edges, but I managed to insert the sticks and it works quite well. I like the idea of using it for matches. You can see I made it originally with the white bark on the inside, but realised that it didn't look good, so I inverted it without a problem.
Hello, everyone. I would like to present to you Rainfall Isle.
I have created many maps in the past, however not to this extent I do not think. Rainfall Isle, the Lonely Archipelago, is a small island on my fictional world of Omniteras,which I have made purely for the fun and practice of cartography and to try to tax my geographical knowledge. The inspiration for Rainfall Isle comes from the British Isles, with its more heavily forested south and mountainous north. The climate would be very similar to the British Isles, and largely the Isle consists of temperate forest regions in the south, tundra/mountains in the north and wetland or bog in the midlands. The mountains, I imagine, are very much higher than in Scotland, with the focal point being the crown of mountains that encircle a great loch. Also a very long river cuts through the north to the and spills out into the rifts of the midlands. The concept behind the midland region of the Isle, although I am not using this map as a representation of a fictional world, could be that the rifts in the midlands would act as a catalyst for a political south-north divide. There are only two narrow land bridges to travel across if any theoretical inhabitants wanted to get to the south to the north and vice versa. The south is very much like England, although the main range of hills are higher than those found in the Peak District, I imagine. This is an imaginary world, after all, so the landscape might as well be scaled up.
I enjoyed making this map very much. There's something very thrilling about terraforming digitally, carving out all the river, plotting all the islands and placing in all the other little details by hand. Indeed, most of this was done by hand. I spent about three days working on this, and I am very proud of all the detail that went into this. I had recorded an in depth video that was more than ten minutes in length, but decided against it as that was too long. I have instead produced a small video that shows some of the stages that went into making the map.
For those not familiar with the software package I used, Photoshop is the industry standard photo manipulation and digital painting program. In Photoshop there are individual elements that comprise a digital image called layers. Rainfall Isle is comprised of many layers that make up the map at large. I used digital brushes which, when certain effects are applied, can provide a much more realistic appearance. I think Rainfall Isle has a balanced amount of both realism and style.
Also, I should mention I have left out place names as I do not really believe in using fantasy names because I am not a linguist. I do not believe one should use fantasy names if they are not a linguist because all they are really doing is essentially hitting the keyboard to come up with a name for a region or town which subtracts from the realism and authenticity. I used to create fantasy maps, but this map is based off the British Isles and so to will future maps be based off other countries.
Some of you may know that I'm very interested and passionate about natural history, geography and cartography. I've always been interested in maps, really, but I've found myself being ever more drawn to them. I have many maps of Scotland and I collect leaflets from places I've travelled. Now, I don't consider myself a designer by any means, that title falls to a relative of mine, but I think I know enough about geography and have studied maps enough to attempt my own digital rendering of a fictional world. Most fictional geography is used for fantasy fiction, but I don't write fantasy fiction and, truth be told, don't read very much of it. I just enjoy designing maps as a hobby.
A couple of weeks ago I began to draw out a projection for a small isle, but then I decided to carry it over to digital design on the computer. I've been working on this rendering for maybe two or three days, and I'm trying to make it as detailed as possible. I'm extremely proud of what I've made and I'm shocked because I didn't know I could produce such a thing.
I proudly present to you a small preview of Rainfall Isle, the Lonely Archipelago, from my world of Omniteras, my answer to a close relative's own work:
For those not familiar with Photoshop and map creation of this kind, no map generation software was used. This is all my work utilising various brushes and manipulating photos and effects.
I will be uploading a video of the finished map as this is something very dear to me now and I've spent many hours working on it.
Well, it's 2014. I thought the 1st January would never arrive. 2013 was probably the longest year of my life, but that's because I managed to do quite a lot. There are a lot of things I'd like to do this year too. I'm going to start camping here in England in the spring and have many nights in the woods, see about a course at Sparsholt and hopefully take a few trips up to Scotland. And of course I'll still be volunteering at Butser Ancient Farm and continuing to practice bushcraft.
Happy New Year.
Edit: 6th January. On top of camping, crafts and everything else, I also want to start tracking this year. I want to learn how to read the land. This, I think, will be the year of trying to understand the land and
building upon previous experiences. I didn't feel quite ready to begin learning such skills, but the past two years, especially 2013, have given me the knowledge and therefore a good grasp on nature so I think I'll start now. I know how to identify trees and many geographical features, and I feel at home in these places. I can imagine reading sign of a deer and following it across the woods to find a group standing in a clearing. Tracking is obviously very hard to do, but I'm willing to put the effort in and it seems a very rewarding part of Bushcraft.
I decided to go ahead and oil the crook knife holder/case with linseed oil and try my hand at kolrosing for a second time.
I've finished my fifth wood carving project, not a utensil but a case for my crook knife, a tool which is used for carving bowls in spoons.
Here are a few work in progress photos and the final shot.
I took an off cut of wood and sized it down with a saw and knife. I purchased a dowel rod, which was cut in half, and a metal skewer. I then took said metal skewer and heated it over a log fire in the house until red hot. I then shaped the metal by eye to fit the profile of the crook blade. That was tricky. I eventually went to the gas cooker and used that as it was faster at heating the metal. With the help of my brother and after two hours or so the metal had made its way through the wood. The problem was that it wasn't a strong metal and it was very susceptible to bending so we had to be careful. It eventually got down to where it needed to be. I then shaped the wood case and lid to a sort of hexagonal or angular design. The lid was made by tracing the shape of the case, then hexagonal, to a bit of mdf board and cutting it out. The lid was a bit thick so I split it down the middle. I then drilled a hole in the main case block. When sanding I decided to just make the case and lid round as it was more aesthetically pleasing. I then super glued the dowel rod to the lid and it all came together.
Although this was another wood carving project and it was on a smaller scale than the utensils, this was an interesting experience because it was the first time I've ever heated and shaped metal. It's really nice to have created my first craft project with multiple components.
I now have to decide what I'm going to make next. I think I might try creating a birch bark tray, give wood working a rest, perhaps.
