Valentine Cards

Cards are coming along.
Each is unique, contains at least one copper heart and it's own story. ie, "Totally Bound to You," You, Me and the River" etc.
The 'card' is made from vintage photo album pages and the envelopes from old player piano scrolls.
18 or so prepped thus far.

Copper Jigsaw Clasps

These will be drilled and riveted to the front of cards and act as the lock or clasp.
(sandwiched with a copper or brass Csheet on the back) 
The colors are coming through more garish than they really are.

First the heart shape is cut from sheet copper and sanded.
Then I draw the jigsaw lines and saw out the connection.

Filing off burrs and rough spots followed by sanding.

Sanding with 1200 grit.
Not so much to refine the finish but to make edges comfortable to the touch

Before and after heat treating.
I used my phone to take a video of the heat-treating process but the file is too large to transfer. Bummer.
  I heat the pieces with a torch to red hot then immediately drop into boiling water.
It makes a wonderful roiling noisy fuss then settles down.
Colors can range from warm yellows  -to orange - to red - to deep red - to nearly purple
depending on the temperature when it hits the water.
It then receives several coats of wax and buffing.

Ideas Percolating, Sketches, Cards, Quote

Today, while I let my ideas for another book project gel in my gooey mind, I went about keeping the creative hands busy. So I did a spot of sketching and some painting and some cutting and Valentine card making (oh and one holiday card). It feels fitting to top off this post with some insightful words by Julia Cameron, from The Artist's Way.

"An artist must have downtime, time to do nothing. Defending our right to such time takes courage, conviction, and resiliency. Such time, space, and quiet will strike our family as a withdrawal from them. It is ... An artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude. An artist requires the time of healing alone. Without this period of recharging, our artist becomes depleted... We strive to be good, to be nice, to be helpful, to be unselfish. We want to be generous, of service, of the world. But what we really want is to be left alone. When we can't get others to leave us alone, we eventually abandon ourselves. To others, we may look like we're there. We may act like we're there. But our true self has gone to ground. Over time, it becomes something worse than out of sorts. Death threats are issued."

Sketch of the nook over my fireplace - note the "Thurston" artwork in the background.

The morning's abstract watercolor cut into circles and ready for assembly

Some of the assembled Valentine's cards (thank you DS Watkins, for the creative concept)

Ok, cheating a bit, this is from last month ... one of our painting class exercises.