The whole process of which wood to use for your next project can be an absolute minefield. What shape? Which size? What colour? Air-dried, kiln dried, green wood, what are the answers to all of these questions and more? Most wood suppliers are very helpful and quite free with their advice and experience to the novice woodworker regarding wood selection. Always try to have in mind exactly what you are going to make and this will help you to narrow down some of your choices and some of the questions that you have. When first starting out in your woodworking hobby you can try to use "Green wood" which is very recently cut wood from the tree. This type of wood is obviously very wet but is much easier to turn or carve and can normally be obtained very cheaply, if not free. The disadvantages of using Green wood are that it will dry unevenly, distort and split but makes for some interesting shapes and features. Wood that can be bought from your wood supplier will normally be air-dried or kiln dried, these are the two main ways of "seasoning" wood. Air-drying is the process of allowing the wood to dry very slowly in a controlled environment with a steady airflow over several years. Kiln drying speeds the drying process up to just a few months rather than years, using a very large oven, it removes the moisture from the wood much quicker but still in a controlled environment. Before going to your wood supplier for your purchase, have a few answers in your mind to some questions - for example, what am I going to make? is it a gift or for my own house? is it going to be practical or just decoration? The answers to those questions will help to narrow down the choices that you will need to make when you get to your wood supplier. For example, if you are going to make a decorative bowl for your own living room, is the shape going to be simple or ornate? If simple you can use wood with a lot of grain feature, where as a more ornate bowl may distract from the grain feature so you can go for a plainer wood. Decide what size the bowl is going to be and ensure the wood you buy has large enough for you to be able to remove the waste and still achieve the size and shape you want to make. If the bowl is going to be in your central heated home the wood will need to be well seasoned to ensure that it does not dry out any more and start to split. There are many thousands of very beautiful woods available throughout the world so do not rush into your purchase, have a look around and start to get an idea of what catches your eye. Happy wood hunting.