Tulips

A friend of mine gave me these spectacular tulips last night... I keep looking at them and thinking about how all creation worships Him, so I thought I’d share them. I was going to try to narrow it down to two pictures but couldn’t, so you get all four.

You can click on the images to see them bigger.

Violette's Mural

This is another recent artwork... One of my younger brothers and his wife are expecting their first child, a daughter named Violette, in the beginning of November. Caleb and Ben painted the wall light purple and then I painted the mural—since Caleb and Jody love the Northwest, mountains, snow, and evergreens, that's what they got about 4.5-5 hours later. It was a lot of fun to paint.

You can click on it to see it bigger...

Photograph © Ben Depp

Self-Portrait

I started this painting a long while ago and just finished it a week or so ago… It's my first and last self-portrait painting. My brother Ben is a professional photographer and he photographed it for me. He also photographed almost all of my other paintings, which was awesome and a really interesting process to experience. Thank you, Ben.

Photograph © Ben Depp

Quilts: #2 and #3

#2, For one of my younger brothers and his wife

#3, This one is for my parents

My favorite part of rag quilts is the texture along the edges of the squares

Moonvines!

If there's something better than my first Moonflower opening, it's six Moonflowers opening on the same night, and if there's something better than six opening at the same time, it's all six opening after a light rain in beautiful overcast light.

This one was almost open...

I think Heaven is going to be full of these exhilarating gasps of beauty.

Light vs. Darkness

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5

Shadows

In a pit today and somehow this picture represents how I feel. I took it this past week. It's shadows on a wall in Charleston, S.C.

Latest Artwork

If I had known I could have a painting in my hair, I would have done this a long time ago...

Quilt #1

The Known

Drawn to communicate THIS

Shell Ring

Fresh off the workbench...Hot off the torch... Or something.

Camel Cricket/Glasshouse Grasshopper/Malevolent Disturber

You have to read THIS post for the explanation for this:

Life

More Metalwork...

T's Ring, Cuttlefish cast silver scraps (see mold example below), fabricated, forged...

Used cuttlefish mold

Stone Ring, Silver with ? Stone

This is my first stone setting.... I made the stone too. The stone is a copper/silver alloy made by accidently melting copper and silver scraps into a blob instead of sweat soldering them together... I like it.

A's Cross (if he likes it), Silver and Copper

Flower and Stone, The flower petals spin... Silver and Copper

Easter-He is Risen

Good Friday

???

So, if there are things here now that are this beautiful, what will the New Heavens and the New Earth be like? Took these pictures today at a botanic garden.

Silver Fabrication Therapy Results...

Nothing like some cathartic beating on metal and heating stuff up to red hot/melting to make a person feel better...

If you want to know how these are made, see directions below...

1. Cut pendant shape out of 22ga sterling silver sheet
2. Put on firebrick and add silver filings, small scraps etc on top of pendant
3. Heat with acetylene torch until red hot, watch as surface turns molten and remove heat when desired fusing is accomplished. Use a medium sized, fairly hot flame. Not too hot or it will be harder to control the fusing. You may have to reheat several times as it's very easy to turn the whole thing into a silver puddle if it is overheated. Quench in water.
4. File edges with bastard file.
5. Sand edges with 400 grit sandpaper
6. Place on steel bench block and use spring-loaded center punch to create the hole for the bail. Use one corner of the block because this will leave small divots in your otherwise pristine bench block. Punch five times.
7. Place on 2x4’ scrap and repeat five punches with same center punch.
8. Use round needle file and 400 grit sandpaper to smooth and enlarge hole.
9. Use wood dapping block and improvised wooden dowel punches to dome pendant.
10. Cut 2-3in length of 18ga silver wire and file one end smooth.
11. Use round-nosed pliers to form loop in wire.
12. Flux, heat, and apply solder to joint in loop.
13. Heat very carefully with small bushy flame. Remove heat as soon as solder flows or you’ll melt your wire. Quench wire in water.
14. Put unlooped end of wire through hole in pendant. Hang wire over edge of firebrick and heat with sharp hot flame until end balls up. Quench in water.
15. Bend wire so pendant hangs gracefully and moves easily.
16. Pickle pendant in warm acid bath for 5-10 minutes to clean it.
17. Move pendant to baking soda/water bath to neutralize pickle/acid.
18. Move pendant to water to clean it completely.
20. Move pendant to rotary tumbler with mixed steel shot, water, and one drop of dishwashing liquid and tumble for several hours to work harden the metal and strengthen it.
21. Remove pendant from tumbler and wash in clean water.
22. Scrub pendant with brass brush to clean of residual fine silver, which won’t accept patina/oxidization.
23. Fill glass jar with hot water, drop in pea sized piece of liver of sulphur. Don’t breathe the fumes as they are “dangerous.”
24. Fill second glass jar with hot water.
25. Place pendant on copper scrap wire and dip in the hot water.
26. Dip pendant in LOS solution, and back into hot water, and so forth until desired darkness is reached.
27. Find rubber gloves, fine steel wool, and a large plastic bowl. If you don’t wear the rubber gloves you’ll end up with some wicked steel splinters that will hurt like hell.
28. Brush pendant with steel wool using whatever pattern of motion leaves patterns you like. Remove as much patina as necessary to achieve the level of shine you find appealing.
29. Congratulations. You are now finished.
30. Unless you want to actually wear your pendant, in which case I would suggest a simple, strong silver chain that won’t distract from all of your hard work on the pendant.
31. Good luck trying to photograph metal... It's not very accurate.

Caleb's Painting

This is a painting I did for my brother. I started out kind of just playing with the paint and as it developed it turned into a painting about Heaven. It’s about the glimpses of beauty that we see and feel and experience here and there amidst the darkness and pain and suffering. It’s about how those moments of overwhelming beauty are foretastes of Heaven and, as such, are like windows into Heaven. The lines lacing in and out of the windows represent the interconnectedness between earth as we now experience it and Heaven as we now catch glimpses it.

You can click on the pictures to see them bigger. It's 36x48" in real life and loses a lot in photographs.

2.21.10

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Albert Schweitzer

"Death's" Door