Marcus brought in a selection of wooden billets for carving which he had soaked in water overnight as the wood is then easier to carve and we chose which one we wanted to carve. he took us through the safety procedures for carving with the razor sharp knives he'd brought for each of us to use, how to hold the knife to prevent cutting our hands and the direction in which to carve (always carving down the way) along the grain of the wood. Each of us drew the shape of a spoon design on our wooden billet and Marcus drew out on each piece where to carve and the direction in which to carve. He also showed us how to hold the piece of wood on the side of the knee and to keep turning the piece. Once the wood had been carved down to the design line on the handle Marcus then showed each of us how to make the curved back of the spoon, thumbing the knife slowly to shave off the wood down to the tip of the bowl, leaving the bottom of the bowl thicker and stronger. Once the overall shape of the spoon had been carved down to the pencil design we then were each shown how to carve out the bowl of the spoon itself across the grain with a hook knife using a potato peeling motion towards the thumb which was quite difficult to grip and took a bit of getting use to. Once we had carved out the spoon bowl, Marcus trimmed off around each one to tidy them up.
We thoroughly enjoyed the workshop apart from a few finger cuts which Marcus quickly sorted out for us as he didnt want us to bleed on the wood which would cause it to stain and ruin the spoon. Marcus thankfully is a certified first aider. It was hard work but we all managed to carve a spoon we were proud of.