Soap Carving-Good Clean Fun!

(click individual pictures to enlarge)

This week in co-op we were studying Inuit carvings, which were done on soapstone, bone or tusks. The Inuit (meaning "the People") used to be incorrectly called Eskimos, which means "raw flesh eaters." Traditionally, their carvings were stylized, highly smoothed animals, sometimes worn as amulets.

We have been practicing carving bars of soap at home all week in preparation for today's co-op classes. The girls and I ended up doing 11 different carvings. All art classes from 3rd to HS tried out carving today. It made a nice change from other mediums, and it was eagerly absorbed and enjoyed. We went through about 60 bars of Ivory soap in just a few hours!

Daughter W. made the painted bird. She wanted to paint her carving, although I think it will chip pretty easily. She also had to make a birdhouse for him. Daughter M. made the bird and penguin, Daughter L. made the Beluga whale, (my favorite,) the fish and the seal. I did the rounded owl, the penguin and the turtle. The highly individual, single owl on black was done in our 5th/6th grade class by Elliot J., who assures me that "there could never be too much [class] time for art."

Here is the process I used:

1. Tools and materials are simple. Ivory soap (or other), plastic knives, angled craft sticks (cut off end with wire snips), paper plate for shavings, and toothpicks. (See picture.)

2. Simple patterns can be drawn directly on the soap, or can be made on paper. I offered several simple patterns that I drew to speed the process and get directly into the carving. (See picture.)

3. Patterns can be cut out and traced with a toothpick onto soap, or a pattern centered on soap and a toothpick used to shallowly pierce through the paper to make a "dotted line" outline.

4. Use the plastic knife to cut away extra areas of soap, up to the lines, roughly shaping the carving. Do not hurry, do not saw off chunks, rather, shave the soap away in layers so you do not accidentally break off large chunks. You may want to lightly smooth out the word Ivory before you begin your carving.

5. Now look at the carving from all sides and decide what parts need to be narrowed or smoothed (usually the head, feet or tail need to be narrowed looking from the top or bottom.) Reference pictures can help a lot at this stage. To stay in the Inuit tradition, go with less detail and more of a suggestion of the shape of the animal.

6. Begin to smooth with a smaller tool (the popsicle stick or the side of a toothpick work well here), taking down ridges and bumps. Check for eveness (symmetry) from top to bottom and side to side. Correct any disparity by lightly carving and continue smoothing. Do not be in a hurry or try to take too much off at one time. Be careful with fins or flippers or narrow areas. These can break off easily. They can be repaired with water-softened shavings, but it might be better to adjust your carving and go a different direction.

7. Finish with any carved in details you want to add (flippers, eyes, whiskers, scales, designs.) Some instructions tell you to smooth the carving with a water dipped finger, or even run the carving quickly under water, but I found this to be too "soapy."

8. Don't be too discouraged if something breaks or turns out differently than you wanted it to. Artists very seldom get their art to turn out just as they pictured it. Try another one, and it will likely be easier and more fun this time! Remember to sign and date your carving. There was an Ivory soap bust on-line that was from the 1940's!