You know me… never one to do something on a sensible scale, especially something new. Well, as normal, I’ve thrown myself into a new project and may be it’s a little bigger than it should have been for the first time I’ve picked up a chisel and mallet since I was at school.

The outhouse is being rebuilt, and our main contractor decided that a cross beam (apparently called a purlin) wasn’t needed, and it was pointless to take the timber back to the yard as the restock fee would negate the refund. So what does a mixed media artist do with a spare piece of planed lumber 7½” high and almost 16 feet long? He decides to carve it and make it into a modern day totem.

Yesterday, I managed to get the beam cut in half to 2400mm long and scorch the surface using a blow torch. Above is day one of my chipping away, learning how to hold mallet and chisel, take away just enough wood to get a bas relief without massive gouges because the chisel was upside down. A quick application of black shoe polish has helped define the scorching a little better and a quick buzz with a flap wheel sander on my Dremel and well… I’m certainly no master carpenter. I wonder if by the end of the phrase there’ll be a discernible improvement?