As Jeff Holtby pounds away on the anvil in his Freeland studio, the hot metal takes shape.

“Ca-ching, tap. Ca-ching, tap. Ca-ching, tap, tap.”

The sound of the blacksmith’s hammer as he shapes the piece then takes a second to pause between whacks begins to form a rhythm that’s art in itself.

Holtby is just one of the 55 Whidbey artists who will open their doors Saturday and Sunday during the seventh-annual Open Studio Tour, and let the public see their creative idiosyncrasies first hand.

The tour will include painters, sculptors, cabinetmakers, glassblowers and sculptors, jewelry makers, quilters, photographers, woodcarvers, potters, furniture makers, blacksmiths and everything in between.

With 55 artists on the tour, there will be more to art to explore this year. Previously 30 artists was the largest showing, so this is a tour history-making response, according to Artist Tour committee chairman Ed Severinghaus.

The two-day event will cover artist studios from Coupeville in Central Whidbey to Cultus Bay at Whidbey’s southern most tip. It is sponsored by Island Arts Council, with all proceeds benefiting council programs such as its scholarship program and artist assistance.

“Island Arts Council works to support artists, and the goal with the tour is to make artists and their studios more available and known to people in the community while also raising money for Island Arts Council which supports the arts in all of its forms,” Severinghaus said.

New to the tour this year are three group sites where multiple artists’ work will be displayed. Twelve members of Whidbey Woodworkers Guild will display fine furniture at the studio space of Dennis Bohling in Freeland. The images of seven island photographers will be at the Deer Lagoon Grange. “Pleine Aire Painters of Whidbey Island,” Anne Belov and Betty Rayle will be at Betty’s studio, home to Greenbank Cellars.

“The tour is a unique opportunity for people to see the interworkings of what we as artists do,” Holtby said. “They get to see the process and learn about the person and their art by seeing where and how they create it.”

Holtby began blacksmithing in the 1980s because he was looking for decent tools for woodworking. As he explored making his own tools, he soon fell in love with bending and shaping metal.

He’s been on island for 10 years, and a tour participant for the last five. Much of his work is “functional architectural” such as gates, fireplace screens, railings and pot racks.

The artist tour allows Holtby to introduce blackmithing as an art — something Holtby says many people overlook it as.

“If you treat the material like clay, it’s allowed to become flexible and molded into everything beautiful,” he said.

While the tour is an opportunity to remind people of artists like Holtby, it is also often the first public introduction for immerging Whidbey artists.

“It gets their art before the public in such as huge way,” said Skip Smith, Island Arts Council member. “They can sit at home and make the most wonderful things but only maybe their family would see it.”

Smith is a photographer and first-year Island Arts Council member who also sits on the council’s visual arts committee, which headed the tour.

“People are often aware of the big names, but for them to know about all the different artists on the island that would be wonderful,” Smith said.