Joel's Blog

A Carved Bird

11/19/2025

A customer of ours, Konstantin, carves and whittles and gave us at the shop a wonderful carving a bird that is a composed of a series of whittled fans. It's all two pieces of wood, one the body and tail, the other the wings.

This is a traditional carving and the wings of the bird are made up of feathers which are carved by cutting the profile of the feathers and then slitting the profile into individual feathers, and twisting them so they lie flat and interlock.

The bird is an extremely charming piece of work and we thank Konstantine for letting us keep it. It's hanging out on the checkout counters - so come by and take a look.

If you are interested in this type of carving and whittling, the best book I know of on the subject is one I have had since I was a kid. Whittling and Woodworking by E. J. Tangerman is a comprehensive volume on all aspects of whittling, with practical examples, and also all styles of carving. The best part is that a lot of the samples of traditional carving are from pieces at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and are still on display there.

Join the conversation

11/19/2025 Ralph McCoy

Well there is another thing I can not do

11/19/2025 Peter Tolcser

Sally and David Nye published two books on fan carving.

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The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the blog's author and guests and in no way reflect the views of Tools for Working Wood.

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