Chip carving, also sometimes called spoon carving, is a style of wood carving in which knives are used to remove small chips of wood from the project surface in a single piece. Chip carvings have two planes: the wood surface and the point beneath the surface where the cuts intersect.
Patterns can be free form style or based on geometric figures. The projects are created primarily using chip carving knives upon basswood, butternut, pine, or mahogany.
This article will describe relief carving in the medium of wood, though relief carving is also done in stone and other materials. Relief carving, when done in stone, is usually referred to as relief sculpture.