I recently had the opportunity to experiment with another artform that could become (yet another) obsession… I have always loved collecting bones and ever since joining Woodland Ways have been in my element, with carcasses from game prep or hidework being a regular by-product of our courses. I have many buckets happily macerating at the bottom of my garden. An abundance of bones waiting for inspiration to strike.
But what to do with them all? Bones have been used since time immemorial for all sorts of different purposes. Being hard and durable, yet also easily worked, and coming in a range of shapes and sizes, they can be used as pieces in games, as jewellery and decoration and as tools. Deer leg bones make ready made powder and needle containers… shoulder blades great flat surfaces.
Additionally, being white, they also provide the added bonus of providing a ready blank canvas just asking to be decorated…
This conclusion is something that has been reached by peoples all around the world and throughout history and there are countless examples of beautiful useful and decorative items made from bone and ivory.
Scrimshaw is one such example of decorating bone which quickly became an art form all of its own right, being created by whalers during the 19th and 20th Century. Hunting scenes, portraits of lovers or patriotic emblems were scratched onto the smooth surface of a whale tooth or bone. Later a dark pigment such as soot was rubbed into the grooves to make the design stand out against the white background. Countless teeth were decorated in this way by bored sailors during their many hours of down time between active whale hunts.
Scrimshaw has become highly sought after in the recent years, with some of the artwork being of incredible standard. Today the sale of whale teeth and bones is heavily restricted. However, some years ago I bought an antique antler piece, which has been decorated in the same fashion, also depicting a whale and probably used in net making. I love it… the crude artistry and personality of it… the tactile way it sits in the palm… the way that it triggers the imagination with so many questions about the source of the antler, the artist and the circumstances behind its creation. It sits in pride of place amongst the many other trinkets on my shelf.
Being so drawn to such objects, when we undertook the Bone & Flint Tools module of the Primitive Skills Year Course, it was something that I was really looking forward to.
We were provided with a selection of different bones to choose from to make our tools. I was immediately drawn to a large, aged and yellowed cow humerus. This bone had been discovered during the excavating of an old abattoir site in Edinburgh and was over 100 years old. Looking at the bone, I envisioned a knife with an ergonomic handle, using the knuckle side of the bone for the butt.
I drew the rough shape of the knife onto the bone in pencil and then using a hacksaw, cut it length ways until I got to the desired length. I then prized this section away from the rest of the bone and was left with a big shard.
With my knife roughed out, I filed and sanded it into the desired shape. It took quite a while but I really enjoyed the process and seeing the knife emerge. I let the piece of bone continue to lead the way and eventually ended up with a butter knife sort of shape with a bit of a recurve.
I next thinned out a lot of the material, needing to remove the honeycombe interior of the bone from the blade section of the knife. I tried to retain as much of the natural pattena on the handle as possible, maintaining the grooves and cracks from the bone which told the story of its age and history.
Once I had finally shaped the knife, I next began to think of decoration and did some research into techniques. I came across the work of Brian Stockman, a master carver of bone and ivory (amongst other materials) who offers some wonderful free tutorials about all things related to this artform, available across all social media platforms.
I also looked at examples of Sami knives, the handles of which are often made from highly decorated antler from their reindeer. A wonderful process blog from Sami knifemaker Roman Kislitsyn proved invaluable here.
When considering what to decorate onto my knife I thought of a couple of ideas through. Eventually though I decided that with the provenance of the bone, that a celtic knotwork design would be most appropriate. After sketching out a coupke of ideas, I finally settled on a dragon and drew the design onto the knife in pencil.
Since this was to be my first crack at decorating bone, I didn’t have any specialist tools available and so instead opted for a leather awl. I carefully scratched around the whole design, gradually increasing the depth of the scratches until I was satisfied that the design was deep enough to hold a pigment.
Having followed the blog of Roman Kislitsyn closely, I decided to use his technique of oil paints and beeswax as the medium to make my design stand out. I rubbed black oil paint into the part of the design which I wanted to be black. Next I covered that part of the design with beeswax before rubbing the lighter brown pigment into the rest of the design. I then melted the wax away and polished the knife to remove any excess ink. I was pleased with the finished effect for my first attempt. However my wish to retain the character of the bone became a bit of a problem as the grooves of the bone held ink where I didn’t want it to and this proved difficult to remove. The next time I would definitely sand the surface to be scrimshawed smoother.
With my butter knife complete, I decided to make a sister knife with the remaining piece of the bone. This section had a strong curve in it which I let dictate the shape of the piece. After another long stint of filing, I ended up with a completely different type of knife.
Originally unsure of what I would use it for, this blade has become an extremely efficient bark spud, with the large surface area and the curve allowing it to fit around the a tree trunk, helping me to be able to harvest decent sized sheets which I have used for bark containers.
I have yet to decorate this second knife but am thinking about another celtic dragon design.
I really love the end result of working with bone… which leaves me with something useful, durable and tactile and nice to look at.
With many bones in my garden almost ready to use, I am looking forward to refining my technique making other creations in the months to come.