Category Archives: Behind the Scenes

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A Quarter of the Way Done! (Two of Cups)

twocups

Woohoo! With the nineteenth assemblage piece, I am half a piece of artwork away from being caught up for March! This also means I am about a quarter of the way done, since 78 divided by 4 is 19.5. And I’m already working on the twentieth piece which, if not done by the end of March, will be completely shortly into April.

The Two of Cups is a lovely card to work with. It’s all about love and relationships and mutual attraction, whether sexual in nature or not. It’s about the close bond that can form between people, and I feel it represents the best of what we have to offer as a species. It’s also the union of opposites, finding the places where we connect rather than oppose. In the Rider-Waite-Smith card, a caduceus symbolizes this balancing factor, and I deliberately chose ball python ribs as a nod to that serpentine symbol.

This was a fun piece to work with, structurally speaking. It was a originally a children’s toy that made car noises (until it was broken, anyway) that I pulled out of a thrift store last-chance bin. I removed the extraneous electronics and other components and used the old circuit board as the back of the piece. Because the circuitry was a bit raised and still showed through the paint, i added the burlap to obscure it and add some texture to the piece.

In other news, I’ve been busy putting the finishing touches on the IndieGoGo campaign for the Tarot of Bones! I have lots of awesome perks for y’all to choose from starting April 7. And I’ve been working with my videographer to polish up the video for the campaign (and there are rumors of a possible blooper reel…) Just a week and a half to go before all is revealed!

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Sneak Peek: Card Mock-up!

magicianmockup

Happy Friday, all! So here’s a quick mock-up of the Magician card I did this afternoon, practicing photography and graphics skills. (I still have a year before I have to have final files, so plenty of time to brush up.) No color correction and only a little bright/contrast tweaking.

My plan is for the cards to not have borders, and for the text to be very simple so as to not detract from the images themselves. Keep in mind that I’m working with GIMP 2.0, which while it does a lot of the things Photoshop does, has its limitations (particularly with regards to text effects). Like I could pretty easily add a drop shadow to the text here, but anything fancier may or may not work. Also keep in mind that my photography and graphics skills are still fairly rudimentary, and this project is going to be an excuse to get better.

So what are your thoughts? I’m open to your constructive feedback! And thank you

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The Six of Cups – And Pink

sixcups1

I gave myself a few days off from the Tarot of Bones in order to work on some other projects; I have a big vending event coming up next weekend and I wanted to make sure I was prepared for it. However, I couldn’t bear to stay away for long, and so I dove back into the Cups!

So if you’re familiar with my work, you’ll notice that my color scheme tends toward earth tones. Occasionally I toss in some red or blue, but that’s a rare occasion, and usually as an accent. But the board that I started with for this piece was already painted bright pink when I got it from Goodwill; it had been some sort of “My name is…” sign for a child’s bedroom. Moreover, the words were either painted or laminated on it in such a way that they were slightly raised, and no amount of sanding made them or the paint want to budge.

Now, the symbolism of the Six of Cups deals quite a bit with childhood and innocence, and the Rider-Waite-Smith card features flowers as a significant symbol. So I decided to play with this some, and incorporate the original pink. I camouflaged the words with several layers of mottled paint, and then sanded the edges of the piece to let the rosy hue show through. I picked up the colors with the faux flowers, too.

What about the ribs? Two deer ribs protectively wrap around a quartet of smaller ball python bones, symbolizing children at play in a safe walled garden. And yes, there is something of a yonic effect in the shape of the deer ribs, given that for many of us our mothers were our first and fiercest defenders. This card allowed me to play with more feminine themes that I normally don’t touch on, and so I decided I may as well run with it.

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Ramping Up Promotion!

I’ve started the big promotional push leading up to the IndieGoGo campaign that starts on April 7. I’ve already been passing out promotional postcards all over the place since the beginning of the year–I’ve given out almost 1000 so far, placed in coffee shops and pagan stores, sent off with Etsy orders and handed to folks at events. (Good thing they’re printed on recycled paper!) If you own a shop or other venue, or know of such a place or event, where a few of these could be placed, please let me know.

I’ve also produced a formal press release for general media use; I have a separate one in the works for local media. The general purpose one is here in PDF form; please pass it on to any pagan, tarot or other appropriate media contact you feel may be interested.

I’m also excited to announce that there will be an official campaign party here in Portland! It’ll be at Paxton Gate (4204 N. Mississippi) on Friday, April 10 from 6pm – 8pm. More details forthcoming, but for now we can say that there’ll be free snacks and wine, some of the original assemblage pieces will be on display so folks can finally see them in person, and we’ll have a laptop set up so attendees can back the campaign via IndieGoGo.

If you want to see the pieces earlier, look for some of them in the art show at the Northwest Tarot Symposium this weekend! I’ll also be vending at the event, so feel free to come say hi 🙂