Well, with the assemblage pieces, anyway. I just completed the Seven of Wands this morning, the thirteenth card in my set so far. That means I’ve finished 1/6 of the assemblages! I’m still keeping up on writing each card’s section in the book manuscript as I finish the art, so I’m not behind there, either. This is especially impressive considering I spent the better part of two weeks out of town in February, and the time when I was home trying to play catch-up. The first half of March will be similarly busy, so expect my pace on the Tarot of Bones to flag a bit until the latter half of the month. I should still be able to keep up the pace of 6 1/2 assemblages per month.

So–the Seven of Wands (which I keep mis-typing as the Sven of Wands, a very different card!). This card made me have to figure out how to make ungulate leg bones look like they were fighting. For a moment I was tempted to put them in little jackets with spears and knives and such, but decided on a more minimalist rendition. Needless to say, the card’s energy is very much about defending your turf (for better or worse), and I hope I managed to convey that well with this piece.

I also got to play with a new-but-old medium–crayons! Of course I’ve been coloring with crayons since I was wee little, and I still have the crayons I had when I was young; some of them are older than I am! But I haven’t done much with them in my artwork today. This was my opportunity to experiment, since I wanted a pleasant but not too distracting background for the bones, and acrylics weren’t going to give me the texture I wanted on this old piece of wood paneling I got from the Goodwill Outlet.

I put a couple of layers of acrylic paint on the board just for some uniformity and a better canvas than the flat black it had been before. I tried out some combinations of crayon colors in my sketchbook before coming up with the ideal layers. While the texture ended up a little less solid than I expected due to the faux woodgrain on the board, I really like the effect at the end here. Methinks I’ll have to play with this again.