Soap Carving and a Collaborative Totem Pole

In my Tribal Art of North America class, we were able to do a fun technique that the students always enjoy: soap carving. I've done soap carving with my students before when I taught Inuit carvings (see my original  post here). This time, I thought the children could carve the soap and work together to make a totem pole.

The completed Totem Pole--each of the students
created a section (one animal). I placed them on
a background that looked like sky just to snap the picture.

I found a great handout online about totem poles. It gave some background information as well as great images of some typical animals that appear on totem poles along with a description about the symbolism of each animal. The children chose one of the animals to replicate in soap and began carving with their tools: a vegetable peeler, plastic spoon and a toothpick. Features such as beaks, tongues and wings that protruded far away from the main carving were added later using craft foam. I had a sheet of white craft foam on hand for these "extras," but encouraged the children to do most of their carving in the soap.

Detail of the BEAR (symbol of power on the earth).
The tongue is made with a bit of craft foam.

Once the children were done carving their individual totem animals, we put them together into one totem pole and I snapped a picture. The children took their individual pieces of the totem pole home, but before they left, they had enough time to create a second carving of their choosing that was more like the Inuit. We had a great discussion of how different their two sculptures were: the totem was more of a shallow carving meant to be viewed from a very limited radius, but the Inuit-inspired carving was meant to be held and seen from all angles. The carving was much more intense on the Inuit piece in that they had to think about removing the excess and accurately carving their animal on a variety of planes.

And here's one of the Inuit carvings: a polar bear.
These soap carvings are hard to take pictures of
with my camera--sorry they are blurry!

The children did a great job! ENJOY!

Inuit Soap Carvings

I have been wanting to try this project for a long time! In my "Art Around the World" class we have a little extra time, so I thought it would be the perfect class to try an introduction to carving using soap and simple tools. I originally saw this project in the book "A Survival Kit for the Elementary/Middle School Art Teacher, " by Helen Hume. This is a wonderful book that has a number of great projects. I like how her projects have a "Teacher Page" with background info and alternative lesson plans as well as a "Student Page" that you could photocopy and hand to students to refer to as they work their way through the project.

Polar Bear, looking up.

I started class by flipping through the book "The Inuit: Ivory Carvers of the Far North," by Rachel A. Koestler-Grack. This book is full of great information and images that aided in my giving a brief background on the Inuit people and their beautiful carvings.

I then gave each student a copy of the Inuit Bear Carving Lesson plan from Dick Blick Art Supplies. That lesson is intended to be done by carving a foam block, but the diagrams easily translate to a bar of soap. The handout shows, step-by-step, how the child should carve the block to create a lovely 3D representation of a bear.

I really do encourage you to try this project with your child. It's wonderful to see them working and planning as they carve the soap away! Enjoy!

Supplies Needed:

• Bar of soap (I used plain Ivory)
• Newspaper (for working on and collecting soap chips)
• Skewer or toothpick
• Potato peeler, plastic knife and spoon
• Plastic kitchen scrubber
• Handout from www.dickblick.com (optional, but helpful)

Directions:

If you are creating a polar bear, you can follow the handout from Dick Blick. Some of my students decided to create turtles since I had brought in a carving of a turtle. I had them work from the figure and I walked them through carving the piece. 

I think older students could design their own carvings, but younger students or first-timers may have more success if they work from a plan. Or, if your student is comfortable "winging it," let them go for it and see what animal emerges from their carving!

Carving the rough shape of the turtle with a vegetable peeler.

Adding the final details with the point of a skewer.

Another Polar Bear!

And a cute little turtle!