Kolrosing - Paddle Decoration Technique

While browsing over at the Song of The Paddle forums, I came across a new post by R.B. (Rancid Badger) who makes his paddles the truly authentic way - with an axe and crooked knife (Mocotaugan). He mentioned a decoration technique apparently known as kolrosing. From what I gather, it involves carving the surface (typically with a chip carving blade but with more shallow cuts) and then rubbing the surface with darkened bark dust so that the marks are highlated. This lends itself to some really nice geometric style decoration. Here's a pic he posted of his fantastic work:


Paddle made by Rancid Badger


R.B.'s carved mocotaugan

After doing some more searches on the topic, I found this very informative page on the technique at PineWoodForge.com. I think this might be an interesting diverson from pyrography as a means of decoration. Especially true if the whole paddle is carved with only an axe and knife.