Category Archives: Card Art

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Judgment Wants To Play Fetch With You

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I completed Judgment today–and what a cutie she is! I got this pretty little domestic dog skull (probably a pit mix) from Steve Dean of Frozen Critters to represent the second-to-last card in the Major Arcana. Why a dog, though?

Well, whereas Justice is the moment you realize you screwed up on something (and you might get eaten by the crocodile as a result), Judgment is where you get the chance to make it right. It’s a card of leaving behind a soiled past full of mistakes and resolving to be a better person going forward. It’s full of self-forgiveness and untangling hard feelings all around. Ideally, you’ve taken responsibility for your actions and it’s time to lay them to rest.

And who is still waiting for you no matter how much you mess up? Why, your friendly neighborhood dog! And here she is, waiting for you in a flowered field, with her favorite rope toy in her jaws. sure, she’ll still nip you if you play too roughly with her, but mostly she’s just been eagerly awaiting your return home. It’s up to you whether you accept her forgiveness and go out into the field to play, or let yourself be weighed down by your worries about your past.

I do have to admit I really loved making this card; its energy is quite positive. And it’s another card full of earth tones, my favorite palette. Plus, y’know, *moss*.

In other news, the Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo campaign is almost 150% funded! It’s at $7385 as of this writing. If you haven’t backed it yet but want to, now’s a great time–there are only 18 Slightly Later Bird Combos left. (There are plenty of other perk packages to choose from, of course.) And word of mouth is still important; please pass the link on to anyone you feel may be interested in supporting the Tarot of Bones!

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Huzzah for the Three of Wands!

threewandsHere’s another card that’s near and dear to my heart–the Three of Wands. When it pops up in my readings it often signifies a time of travel and adventure, or even mental expansions of awareness. In any case, it says I’ll be going places so I should have my bags packed.

I used a trio of coyote ulnas for this piece; coyotes do tend to range far and wide, particularly in areas where food is a bit scarce, and they’re highly adaptable creatures. The leg bones definitely get them moving! The map was a last-chance thrift store find; rather than paper, it’s made of a thin, brittle plastic that had seen better days, and the edges had already cracked significantly. There weren’t very many large, undamaged pieces left, but I managed to cut out this topographically interesting section. I did back it with heavy cardboard for extra strength.

And here’s the obligatory plug for the Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo, which is now 144% funded at $7,215 (thank you!!!)

 

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The Five of Cups–and a Happier Note!

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Hi, all–hope you’re enjoying your weekend! I wanted to share my newest assemblage with you: the Five of Cups! This is not the happiest card ever; it tends to signify sadness, regret and other unhappy things. Even when reversed, it can be a symbol of recovery, but often an uphill one with lots of challenges. Not the nicest card in the deck, but it’s a reminder that we all have moments of loss and pain, and perhaps we can take some solace from that.

On a happier note, the Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo campaign is at $6,770! That means that we’re at 135% funding–and we’re just $230 from the first stretch goal, which will mean I get to include a Happy Squirrel card in the final deck, and I’ll announce the next stretch goal. Want to contribute, or share the campaign with someone else? Here’s the link, and thank you!

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The Knight of Wands–and $6,000!

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Here’s assemblage 23 (heh) for the Tarot of Bones–the Knight of Wands! Domestic turkey bones and feathers stand in for their wild cousins, but they make a fancy appearance nonetheless. I chose the American turkey as the emblem of this card because the males, like so many other male animals, will proudly strut their stuff and put forth a lot of effort just to win the attention of the females in the group. In the same way, the Knight of Wands is a flashy, showy character with a lot of drive to get what he wants.

Unfortunately, that drive and single-mindedness can sometimes be the downfall of the Knight–and the turkey. All that pomp can be distracting for the one putting it on, and the showy one may be so determined in his task that he may make other mistakes. In the case of the Knight of Wands it may be sloppy performance at work or other goals. For the turkey, it could mean not noticing the hunter off in the bushes.

Like this assemblage piece? Want to see it and the rest become a usable tarot set? If you haven’t backed the Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo campaign already, now’s a great opportunity! We just reached $6,000 yesterday–that means it’s 120% funded! But there’s still 35 days to go, and you still have lots of nifty perk packages to choose from. All that funding helps me make sure the Tarot of Bones comes out on time.

So head over here to back the campaign, and tell anyone you know who may be interested in supporting this project!

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Announcing the First Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo Stretch Goal!

Can you believe it? We funded the Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo campaign in its first 100 hours!   Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who chipped in, whether by backing the campaign or spreading the word or being moral support through this crazy week. So now that we’ve got our first $5,000 (and change) what’s next? This:

Allow me to announce our first stretch goal:

If the Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo campaign gets to $7000 before it ends, I will add a Happy Squirrel card to the official Tarot of Bones deck and book.

What’s the Happy Squirrel card? It’s something of an in-joke among tarot fans, stemming from a 1995 episode of The Simpsons.

Here’s more of an explanation

.The $5000 already covers my materials for the assemblages, with a little left over to put toward printing/shipping, perk fulfillment and other administrative costsIf we get to $7000, I will have more administrative funding, and I’ll make a Happy Squirrel assemblage piece to be included as the 79th card in the deck.We’re already at a little over $5700–let’s see how fast you can make me have to come up with the next stretch goal!

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New Pentacles, and an IndieGoGo Update

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Hey, all! So it’s been a heck of a week! I got through a quadruple-booked weekend, then experienced a hard drive crash on my main desktop, then developed a respiratory infection. Despite all that, I managed to complete two more assemblage pieces–the Two and Three of Pentacles.

The Two is one of my favorite cards in general because I resonate with it so much. It’s the concept of balancing responsibilities and obligations, and as someone who’s got a lot of projects and events on my plate, maintaining that balance is tricky at times. Like the bones in the assemblage piece, some of these responsibilities have more weight than others at any given time, but the scale can also tip in the other direction, too.

The Three was a more challenging card to create. I am inspired a fair bit by the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and the Three of Pentacles in that deck involves a young architect consulting with church officials on a holy building’s construction. I really like the card’s associations with collaboration, though, so I thought of the three vertebrae as scaffolding to build the stone structure around the outside. The fossilized ammonite at the top is the keystone just laid into place, representing a successful completion of the project.

So–IndieGoGo news! In just a couple of days the campaign has reached $3,827–which means it’s 77% funded!!! I have been absolutely stunned by this; I was not expecting this much positive response to the Tarot of Bones. I’m not complaining, mind you! Just the opposite; I’m exceptionally grateful to all of you who have funded the campaign, and everyone who has passed the link on to other people.

And just as a reminder, those of you in the Portland, OR area are welcome to join me at my Tarot of Bones party at Paxton Gate! It’ll be this Friday from 6pm – 8pm – more information here.

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I Have Been Dreaming About Making This Card–the Hermit!

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Occasionally there’s an art project where I know I want to make it come together, and I have the best ideas, but I haven’t quite figured out the details. But the concept is there so strongly that it comes up in my dreams, that’s how hard I’m thinking about it. The Hermit assemblage is one of those pieces.

When I was first figuring out which species to associate with each of the Major Arcana, several hornbill species leaped out with regards to the Hermit; I was able to get a slightly damaged black-casqued hornbill skull from the Bone Room that was perfect for the project. Tree-nesting hornbill species find crevices high in the tree’s trunk; the female hornbill then walls herself up in the crevice, closing off all but a tiny hole in the opening with a mud wall. Through that opening her mate brings her food, and she gets rid of her waste (and later that of her chicks). Except for the male’s visits, she is all alone while she incubates the eggs. She is so dedicated to this task that she moults all of her flight feathers; even if she opened up the nest, she’d be unable to fly away.

The Hermit is often considered to be a male character in the tarot, so I really enjoyed turning that on its head with the female hornbill. All people, regardless of sex and gender, are capable of productive isolation to one degree or another; it is not only men who go off to be shamans and seers. And the hornbill does come out with something of value–new feathers for herself, and the work she put into creating and nurturing the new generation. She is the shaman who goes off into the wilderness and brings back something valuable for her community, in this case new life. She renews herself as well, and when she finally opens her nest, she has strong, beautiful new flight feathers to carry her back onto the sky.

In the hornbill’s bill there’s a fig I sculpted and painted. Hornbills are omnivorous, though figs are a favorite when in season. A hermit is never completely isolated; she takes the experiences of the world (signified by the fig) and in her quietude transforms them into something new and amazing. Without some connection to the outer world, her efforts are for naught. And the nourishment keeps her strong for when she’s ready to rejoin the outside community again.

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

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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!

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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

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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.