[Woodcarver] Children's carving class --Soap carviing

[Marcia Berkall]

A few years back I did a 3-day artist-in-residency at a Junior High 
School, working with 4 classes each day.  The first day I did wood 
carving demos, took questions, etc.  The last 2 days were hands on 
soap carving.  They carved a lion, the school mascot.  Some of the 
tools I have found that work great with soap...Ivory soap...are:
  ... Bamboo skewers cut to aboout 5" with one end cut at an angle 
and the other to a point
  ...  Plastic knives.  An assortment of different sizes/brands.  The 
different serrations give different textures.
  ...  Paper clips.  I used 2 different sizes.  When they are opened 
up, each has 2 different size "U" shapes that can be used as 
gouges.  The flat sides are great for smoothing/

The kids had a blast, especially the cleaning up part :)  Some well 
places tarps and some bins for the shavings worked well.

I was afraid these teen-age kids would feel that this was beneath 
them, but they all had a blast.  One student even stopped and bought 
a bar of Ivory soap on his way home one afternoon and carved a 
wizard.  How cool is that!!

Enjoy!!

Marcia (aka Mush)
South China, Maine

See Marcia's wood carvings 
at: 

http://whittlinsnwood.com
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Design:
http://artwebmaine.com
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