Students picked up a knife and pencil each, along with a block of wood, to take their first step towards wood carving. The wood carving workshop, held at the N.C. State Crafts Center, is instructed by Leon Harkins, who has been carving since he was 11 years old.

“I started when I was in middle school when I got a book on wood carving checked out from the library,” Harkins, now 77, said. “I ended up doing all the pieces in the book, and haven’t stopped since I immediately signed up for it” Lynn said. “It’s a long drive to this place, but we don’t have anything like this Crafts Center at span data-scayt_word=”UNC” data-scaytid=”12″UNC/span, so it’s worth span data-scayt_word=”it.”” data-scaytid=”13″>it.”

After the students have practiced for a while making cuts and removing tiny parts from their initial piece, Harkins gives them the actual blocks of wood from which they will carve out a wolf. This wood is a little thicker than the practice piece, but not much harder. The block has already been roughly shaped like a wolf, with the prominent anatomical details and posture of the animal to be carved sketched on it in pencil.

The students will have to carve off the extra pieces to make it finer in detail. They began by putting a center line around the piece, as Harkins describes to each student individually from where to take the wood out, and puts more pencil marks on their pieces to make things easier to figure out.

“You have to go around the tail, one side from the other, and then work on the legs,” Harkins said. “Pay attention to the fact that one of the legs is in front of the other. Just keep working around, and once you get most of the wood out, I will guide you