Bd James Strepar part 4

Recent days have been a mix of yard work and various errands, with some occasional block sketching at home.  Today I brought the block on location while I was waiting to get my car serviced.  The block shows some of the changes made since last week.  I redrew the knife, making it slightly larger and making it look more like the actual knife I used in my scout years and brought into the woods to build a shelter with.  I added some necessary detail to the canteen.  I chose a design based on canteens from the   Civil War- old enough to look old fashioned, but still a design that looks enough like the contemporary version to be recognizable to a current viewer.  Lots of photos are available on the internet.  The one I had in my youth had a screw-on cap, but looking at the photos, these 19th century models had a simple spout and were plugged with a cork with an attached ring to make it easy to pull out, so that's what I went with.  In the actual era of Bd James, water would have been carried in a skin bag, or in glass bottles, but I felt the former might not be recognizable to my current viewers, and the latter might have too many associations not compatible to my story.  Since most canteens have straps to make carrying easier, I added one.  The photos of vintage models show it was typically a canvas or leather strap fitted through a metal D-ring attached to the canteen, so I based my drawing on a similar strap on my camera case.

My slightly larger knife covered part of the Galicia name, so I redrew the word, moved over just a little.  At one point I had considered putting more names on my map.  The last version of the block includes a fragment of the name Transylvania (near the wolf and where the strap attaches to the canteen) and I had considered labeling Poland, Austria, and Hungary, all of which are part of this map fragment.  However, I decided that would make the image too cluttered, and that many associations with those modern nation state names might be a distraction from the mood I'm going for.  (the name "Galicia" will be meaningless to anyone who doesn't have extensive knowledge of that region or medieval history)

Still some decisions to make regarding colors and values, but enough is done that I can continue cutting it, and my plan was to go up to the Studio after lunch to do that.  But as I was packing up, rain moved in hard and quick,  So I decided to take care of indoor stuff the rest of the day, and have a long Studio day tomorrow.