Kolrosing

Kolrosing is a wood-decoration method that does not actually remove wood from the decorated object. I tried to do it before, but I had missed a vital bit of information regarding the process. Thanks to bcUK again I found out what it was that I did wrong. Here is how I now do it, in remarkably bad pictures.

First draw out a design, using a soft pencil.

Then, with the tip of a sharp knife, make incisions on the lines. I use the tip of my mora 120 carving knife, and hold it like a pencil. This works quite well.                                

After incising all the lines a colouring powder is rubbed in. Traditionally this was coal, or powdered innerbark. Nowadays people use fine ground coffee or cinnamon powder more often. I use cinnamon here. I have tried using cocoa-powder but that stained the surrounding wood quite a bit as well.

 And now for the important bit: Rub oil onto the kolrosed object. This locks the powder into place and blends out the remains of the pencil.

This is quite a foolproof way to decorate wooden objects. I have seen wonderful intricate patterns as well as fantastic flowers and curly decorations on objects. It is something that I`ll be practicing, because sometimes a little decoration can be just what an otherwise boring utensil needs.