Coloring my heart out for Valentine's Day

Hot off the press: two new Valentine cards.

The top one was adapted from a Charles Dana Gibson illustration that was used in a collage last year with the same title as the card greeting. I'm so enamored of the twisted image of a steaming hot Cupid being served up on a silver platter that it's also become a print and, now, this card. I liked paring it back to the original image, though there have been additions such as more steam. 

After toying with various greetings - "love served up on a silver platter," "hunka hunka burning love" - I stuck with "hot plate."

Each card is hand-colored, so no two are alike. Sometimes, the apron is colored; sometimes, the dress, Sometimes, his wing is colored, sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, well, you get the picture. I feel like one of the Victorian women hand-coloring those Godey's fashion engravings I'm so fond of.

The card below also is hand colored. The image is adapted from an illustration in an 1877 German edition of "Schiller's Werte." It was one of the illustrations for his "Don Carlos." I scanned the ornate title page from the volume and used it on the back of the card, which is printed on pale, ash rose card stock. 

Now, to get them to the studio and area shops, then, on my web site!