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How to Carve a Sharp-Shinned Hawk

The sharp-shinned hawk is a small hawk found in North America. It is blue-gray with flecks of red on the underside. The female sharp-shinned hawk is also double the size of the male. The sharp-shinned hawk feeds on other birds. Make your own carving of a sharp-shinned hawk using a regular bar of household soap and a paring knife.

Things You'll Need

Soap
Paring knife
Orangewood sticks
Paper napkin

Instructions

- 1
  Dry the soap by unwrapping it and leaving it in the air for 24 hours. Choose a soap that has no branding or images printed in its surface. Alternatively, scrape off any images by skimming the paring knife across the surface of the soap.
- 2
  Select the image of a sharp-shinned hawk. If you are new to carving soap, choose an image with a simple outline as this will be easiest to carve. Leave the finer details of the carving to be drawn on at a later stage.
- 3
  Draw the outline of the chosen image onto the soap using a pencil.
- 4
  Cut away small pieces of soap around the outline of the image. Avoid carving off big chunks; if you make any mistakes, they will be hard to cover. Small mistakes can be smoothed out.
- 5
  Skim the knife across the soap from the front outline of the design to the back of the soap. Smooth the entire outline of the hawk image in this way.
- 6
  Draw the smaller details of the hawk onto the soap carving with orangewood sticks. For example, draw in the eyes, beak and some feather texture.
- 7
  Polish the surface of the soap carving by rubbing a paper napkin over it. If you do not have a paper napkin, rub your fingers over the surface of the entire carving instead.

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