OELWEIN - A basement wall displays the many faces of Roger and Andrea Beane.

There's the plumber in overalls on a toilet lid, a cowboy-turned-farmer and a bird sketched into a round tree slab.

Roger specializes in caricatures. Andrea is a pro at woodburning, carving and dyeing dried gourds and fungus.

The projects displayed in their Oelwein home reflect the evolution of their talents. Roger started carving in 1981 while working on his master's degree in Kirksville, Mo. Andrea replaced cross stitching with other crafts about five years ago.

"A guy that roomed next to me had a wooden shoe that he was carving on," Roger recalled. "I said, 'Gee, I'd like to learn how to do that.' So he cut me a blank."

Roger had done taxidermy for a couple of years before that, so he first tried his hand at carving birds. But woodburning the details just wasn't for him. Eventually he found his niche carving human figures from bass wood or fallen trees.

He has branched out into cutting faces into cottonwood bark, plastic golf balls and bottle stops and also teaches classes on carving and knife sharpening.

"As long as it's fairly soft wood, you can carve on it," he said.

He has even carved a self-caricature, complete with eyeglasses, a tie and a schoolbook. Roger will retire this year after 40 years teaching seventh-grade science in the Oelwein district.

"This is one of the scariest ones I've done," he said, looking at his miniature wooden twin.

"We haven't got any requests for that one," Andrea added, laughing.

Roger's favorite part of carving is personalization. He can bring photos of people to life and makes Christmas ornaments for his grandchildren each year. His oldest grandson has 14.

"It depends what they're involved in," he said. "I've done everything from Woody on 'Toy Story' to dinosaurs to Spiderman to drums and guitars and baseballs and skateboards."

Andrea got started with gourds and woodburning after taking a class with Roger a few years ago. Her supplier in Mississippi dries the gourds nine months to a year. When she gets them, she draws patterns, burns in details like leaf veins or bird feathers, dyes them and cuts a lid with an small electric saw.

"There are good books, and you can learn a lot from the Internet," she said. "There aren't very many classes around that can help me anymore because I've already gone beyond what I learned in class."

Roger gauges his investment in each project by the number of nights it takes to complete. A tray of tools is positioned next to an easy chair in front of a basement television. Andrea, a homemaker, typically works in the morning in her makeshift basement studio, a small area in her laundry room.

The Beanes, both 62 and members of the Northeast Iowa Woodcarvers, attend various classes and shows and sell their work at Creative Colony, a shop in Amana. They will be the featured carvers at the Iowa State Woodcarvers Show in Waterloo this weekend.

Contact Tina Hinz at (319) 291-1484 or tina.hinz@wcfcourier.com.