All shapes and sizes!  All carved with the same pocketknife.  And they can go quite a bit larger...and even a lot smaller than the littlest ones perched on the base block of the largest rooster. 

           "The main pocketknife I've used over the past bunch of years is the Victorinox Tinker.  I've slightly 
           modified it by removing the little tab that holds the key-ring and by reshaping the small blade in such
           a way that allows me to make smaller radius cuts.  The range of sizes that one good knife can do is 
           pretty amazing.  You can go much larger, and much smaller, than the pieces in the following photo.
           I've even used my pocketknife in shaping parts of my pumpkin launching slingshot...and even my 
           treehouse!"






                                                                          

Chris Lubkemann, living in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, since 1987, was born in Brazil to missionary parents.  He remembers his earliest attempts at whittling when he was about seven or eight years old,  in the Ucayali River town of Contamana, deep in the Amazon rain forest of northeastern Peru.  Strangely enough, the first carving projects he recalls making were little dentist tools!  You know, little picks and the like.  That particular whittling stint was short-lived, however, as his mom thought it wasn't the best idea for jungle kids to be poking around in each other's mouths.

Chris' interest in working with wood continued strong though, and he remembers making wooden toys, doll furniture, boats, rafts, treehouses, slingshots, bows and arrows and traps.  Much of his raw material consisted of scraps from around his dad's workbench.  And of course twigs and branches were definitely not in short supply in the interior regions of South America.

Now, skipping over to the summer of 1966...we'll pick up Chris' own words:

"I carved my first little forked-branch rooster the summer between my junior and senior years in college.  Dr. John Luke, the longtime and very loved minister in the mountains of northwestern North Carolina whom I was helping that summer, showed me in a few minutes how a rooster could emerge from a Y-shaped branch.  Granted, my first rooster looked very much like it had gotten into good barnyard fight...and lost!  But, hey, it was a start!  And I made lots more.  In fact, when I returned to school that fall, I decided I might have a viable way (and definitely a fun and interesting one) to help pay for college.  As it all turned out, I may have been the first college student in U.S. history to literally "whittle away" a fair amount of his senior year to help pay for it!"

Together with his wife, Sheri, and their three children, Chris served in mission work in Portugal from 1972 through 1986, followed by a U.S.-based ministry that took him to a number of foreign countries as well as many parts of the U.S.  Wherever he has gone, he has always had a pocketknife or two at hand and a few twigs and branches in his pocket.  For the last twenty or so years his airline carry-on bag has usually been one of his small wooden display cases full of an assortment of branch carvings, ranging from a 1/8th-inch tall rooster to a variety of larger pieces, including pheasants, herons, flowers, trees, miniature canoes, and a couple off-the-wall Dr. Seuss type creatures.  Airport security checkpoints have provided some really interesting experiences!!

An awful lot of water has passed under the bridge since that summer of 1966.  Maybe "an awful lot of woodchips have flown off the edge of a pocketknife" would be a more accurate way to put it.  Chris Lubkemann, and thousands along with him, have carved "zillions" of roosters of all shapes and sizes, and countless other figures too.  So this fun slant on woodcarving, picked up by a college student over four decades ago in the Blue Ridge on North Carolina, keeps getting shared and passed on the folks of all ages, and the number of branch carvers worldwide continues to grow.

The mascot of this type of carving is the rooster, ranging from miniatures smaller than 1/8th inch tall to ones that are life-size.  The branch rooster probably earned its status as the branch-whittling "star" because of its fanned out tail feathers, and maybe also because roosters in general are so popular in folk art and culture all over the world.

But there are many, many other figures and projects that can emerge from a twig, branch, or other scrap of wood.  Following are just some:  pheasants, herons and egrets, roadrunners, animal heads (dogs, horses, goats, etc.), eagles, songbirds, all kinds of Dr. Seuss type "critters," knives/letter-openers, forks, spoons, salt and pepper shakers, walking sticks, canes, backscratchers, lamps, coat racks, slingshots, and even baseball pitching machines and pumpkin launchers!

Chris Lubkemann has authored what are probably the only books on this type of woodcarving, starting with a two-sided single instruction sheet back in 1972.  His two most recent books, published by Fox Chapel Publishing (www.FoxChapelPublishing.com) are Whittling Twigs and Branches and The Little Book of Whittling.  Both books have been best-sellers and are widely available in bookstores, woodcarving supply sources, and on-line sites.

Whittling Twigs and Branches has 210 colored photos and 70 drawings and gives step-by-step instructions for roosters, pheasants, herons, roadrunners, knives/letter-openers, miniature trees and flowers, plus suggestions for many other projects.

The Little Book of Whittlling, illustrated with over 380 colored photos, presents 19 projects.  Many of these are very quick and easy to carve.  They're great for beginning carvers.  More experienced carvers shouldn't be turned off, though, as they can take even the plain projects and make them as  fancy and detailed as they'd like.  Some of the projects included, all with step-by-step illustrations, are knives, forks, spoons, canoes, walking sticks, whistles, slingshots, a little duck, fish jumping out of water (complete with splash!), trees, flowers, and several animal heads.

        

          Below:
          Front and back covers of the German translation of The Little Book of Whittling.  This book, Kleine
          Schnitzereien, is available in Germany.  As of December 2008 it is published both in paperback (ISBN
          3-87870-597-2) and hardback (ISBN 978-3-86630-938-8).   The German publisher's website is
          www.HolzWerken.net.

                                               

             Both of these books are written and illustrated so even folks who have had no previous experience
             in woodcarving can do all the projects.  Naturally, the first rooster you carve might not look quite like
             one whittled by someone who has had 40 years of practice.   Currently some of the
             best branch carvers on the planet started out doing some pieces that were pretty "scruffy."

             The all-important rule (stated on page 9 of WHITTLING TWIGS AND BRANCHES and on page 7 of
             THE LITTLE BOOK OF WHITTLING is:  "Make sure your knife is sharp!"  If the knife you carve
             with is truly sharp, your carving with be much more successful, fun, and even safer.  A less-than-sharp
             knife, on the other hand, is actually more dangerous bacause you have to push harder as you make
             your cuts, and the knife blade will have a tendency to skid.

                                                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                                                       

Besides doing outside programs and demonstrations, Chris is the "resident woodcarver" at the Amish Farm and House in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, working in his shop Monday through Saturday, April through October.  Visit the farm's website:
               www.amishfarmandhouse.com