Peters Commission

Another commission come in, this time the gentleman asked if it would be possible to do a 3 person portrait burning on a slice of wood. I said that I didn't have any slices big enough for 3 people, but if he wouldn't mind waiting, I will be sure to keep my eyes out. He said he didn't mind waiting and about a month or so after that, a friend of mine called me asking if I wanted a large section of Cedar tree trunk.

Yes I said with delight!

Once I had the huge log in my possession, the task came about of how to cut it into slices so that it can be used as a hangable artpiece. I phoned nearly every timber yard in medway, they all said they wont cut wood that has not come from their suppliers. Fair enough. Phoned up joiners, same story. Tried to cut it by handsaw, no good. So i took it to the University for the Creative Arts, to their woodwork workshop. Didn't have a saw big enough. A little while later, the beautiful bunch of people that I live with, collectively called The Millhousers, bought me for my birthday, a petrol chainsaw! I couldn't believe it! Thank you all so much. So I finally was able to slice the formidable Cedar Tree section.

It took 2 hours to plane the wood to make it flat after the novice, hour long, chainsaw event..

Then, once it was flat enough, I could move on to sanding it. Here is what it looked like half way through the 3 hours it took sanding with the belt sander...

Making it smoother and finishing it off with a finer sander....

And then it was ready to start sketching out the portraits...

After a short while of sitting indoors, a not very nice thing happened... The piece started cracking.

I thought I had better observe the wood for a couple of days, and a very nice thing happened, the cracks slowed down and most even stopped growing. So I carried on burning. And this is it after 8 and a half hours of burning.