MoonGypsy
Always eager for the birth of a new deck from Edmund...
i will be watching from the peanut gallery. Let the show begin!
i will be watching from the peanut gallery. Let the show begin!
Liber for Simpletons: a stoned out Dead of the Dead Thoth fusion deck with bacon
baylys
OOOOHHHH! This is gonna be fun!
I don't quite 'get' the Thoth either, so watching this will be helping me learn too.
I don't quite 'get' the Thoth either, so watching this will be helping me learn too.
merissa_88
Love your decks and love the Crowley Thoth. Can't wait to see the first pics. I'm wondering what the 10 of Swords/Ruin will look like...
Cocobird55
Sounds very cool. Looking forward to seeing it unfold.
starlightexp
Card 1: The Fool.
To understand this post you will need the following:
A RWS Deck
A Thoth Deck
A copy of the Tree of Life
A sense of humor
A joint (for medical purposes only)
Some Jefferson Airplane or Doors playing in the background, but Stairway to Heaven will do in a pinch.
After a long delay here is the rough sketch of the Fool. For some they may like to see the creative process of how the cards get made so I’m posting the images as they develop. This drawing is done on a rice paper about 24in long sketched in just plain old #2 pencil. It will be the reference used when the final image gets drawn on the heavy textured pastel paper. Reason for that is the pastel paper has a ‘tooth’ to it that gives the chalky color of the pastel a place to grab hold and produces a texture. If this was rough sketched directly on that paper the constant erasing and repositioning of things would result in the tooth being worn down and the texture lost. End of art lecture ….
light up… start to inhale now…
Christ on a cracker could either A.E or A.C go on any longer about this card. The Fool itself is the most complicated card to read about in either the PkT or BoT. A.C was a HUGE fan of this card. 24 pages huge. For me what he is saying basically boils down to, in a rather crass way, that this card is a great cosmic load in the face. This is a Big Bang shot in the eye of potential coming to light. Every other card in the deck comes from this one card. All the hope, dreams, dangers and pitfalls of 77 other cards comes down to this image. It’s not just a ‘new beginning’ or a “watch out for the cliff’ sort of card it is THE Beginning of something with a capital B. This is the first and most important card in the deck. The closest we get to being on the path of the Divine’s plan. So often some look to the more evocative cards such as the The Hermit or High Priestess as being the ‘spiritual’ cards because they are what we wish or imagine ourselves as, but it’s the Fool that truly is the closest card to the Divine. (More on this in the ramblings below)
Loving the traditional Fool of both the historic and RWS decks I wanted to keep that style. It's the one I'm most comfortable picking out in a spread and identify with and since this is MY deck I can do what I want. Here we have our Fool starting on his way down the Tree of Life. (Yes the kabbalah can be fun in a reading.) A.C wanted the card to come right at you in the face, but for me that’s messy (and can leave you with a red eye). Flipping the card around from the RWS deck the sun behind the Fool becomes the top Sephirot on the tree called Keter. Keter is the Will of the Devine. In it are the great abstract concepts of life, where everything begins. I made the sun into the 1000 petaled lotus of understanding whose petals stretch out over the rest of the back ground. The path The Fool takes on the tree goes off to the right to another strange little bubble of a Sephirot called Chokhmah. sooooo….WTF does this mean? The Fool is Divine Will beginning the path of earthly manifestation by starting towards the Pillar of Mercy. What you mean you can’t use that in a tarot reading? Well here is another way of saying it. The Fool is representative of what The Universe has planed for you. It is a change that is beginning in the very atoms of your spiritual being. It’s a change that will gradually come, as the Fool is way way way up there at the tippy tip top of the tree it’s going to take a bit for it to get down to Earth. So watch out for it. Strive for it. Stay on it’s path. Those that are familiar with the Grateful Dead note the Keep On Truckn’ walk of our Fool.
Elsewhere in this card are various other little goodies to keep you amused and talking:
The Fool is looking at the world through the eyes of transformation as he as a butterfly tattoo over his face. This manifestation of Divine Will is going to change the way one looks at things.
He controls the primal elements of fire and water in his hands.
Typically he has his hobo pouch with him that A.C fills with the zodiacal glyphs. Here our Fool is a light packer he has on his Zodiac Club t-shirt as the reminder that he is made up of all the stars.. or is it that all the stars are made up of him ? …..hmmmmmmm (inhale and watch Bell, Book and Candle)
The little white dog… gone… not a dog fan myself, but he is being followed by the Dove. It’s placement is above an behind his head. The Dove is The Divine Spirit under which the Fool is being guided, but while he is being moved by it he may not ultimately be aware of it.
This Fool LOVES a good tattoo and so the tiger of Bacchus, that menacing creature that is just one of the the dangers lurking rides with him at all times on his leg. Also note the tribal band of grapes representing earth and the caduceus on his arms.
His piercings give us things to think of as well. His nose gives us the symbol of Air completing the representations of the four elements. Not the four suits but the elements behind the suits. Remember this is a card of greater concepts then them. Also dangling from his ear is the Hebrew Letter Alph. Placed here as a way to remind the reader that one needs to listen to the pure word of The Universe, or Devine unfiltered.
The Water pouring out of the chalice provides the emotional path we are walking.
In the sketch drawing at his feet you see the faint outlines of the crocodile that will eventually be worked into the rocks and crevices making up the traditional cliff in the RWS card. I want it to be there but only if you look for it. From the BoT: “The tradition is that the crocodile was unprovided with the means of perpetuating his species. Not in spite of, but because of this, he was the symbol of the maximum of creative energy.”
Oh his fashionable cargo shorts are two strange cave painting like glyphs that when brought together become the Prince and Princess of the courts also being seeded in this card, and the Sun in his crotch… do I NEED to explain that one?
Early ramblings that may get longer, shorter or change as the project goes on but for me this is how I’m seeing the Fool in this deck. Hopefully I’ll have the color version started soon. I warned you I was not a fast artist….
Feel free to ask questions or post things you like and don't like. All art projects should allow all kinds of comments and criticism. Enjoy
To understand this post you will need the following:
A RWS Deck
A Thoth Deck
A copy of the Tree of Life
A sense of humor
A joint (for medical purposes only)
Some Jefferson Airplane or Doors playing in the background, but Stairway to Heaven will do in a pinch.
After a long delay here is the rough sketch of the Fool. For some they may like to see the creative process of how the cards get made so I’m posting the images as they develop. This drawing is done on a rice paper about 24in long sketched in just plain old #2 pencil. It will be the reference used when the final image gets drawn on the heavy textured pastel paper. Reason for that is the pastel paper has a ‘tooth’ to it that gives the chalky color of the pastel a place to grab hold and produces a texture. If this was rough sketched directly on that paper the constant erasing and repositioning of things would result in the tooth being worn down and the texture lost. End of art lecture ….
light up… start to inhale now…
Christ on a cracker could either A.E or A.C go on any longer about this card. The Fool itself is the most complicated card to read about in either the PkT or BoT. A.C was a HUGE fan of this card. 24 pages huge. For me what he is saying basically boils down to, in a rather crass way, that this card is a great cosmic load in the face. This is a Big Bang shot in the eye of potential coming to light. Every other card in the deck comes from this one card. All the hope, dreams, dangers and pitfalls of 77 other cards comes down to this image. It’s not just a ‘new beginning’ or a “watch out for the cliff’ sort of card it is THE Beginning of something with a capital B. This is the first and most important card in the deck. The closest we get to being on the path of the Divine’s plan. So often some look to the more evocative cards such as the The Hermit or High Priestess as being the ‘spiritual’ cards because they are what we wish or imagine ourselves as, but it’s the Fool that truly is the closest card to the Divine. (More on this in the ramblings below)
Loving the traditional Fool of both the historic and RWS decks I wanted to keep that style. It's the one I'm most comfortable picking out in a spread and identify with and since this is MY deck I can do what I want. Here we have our Fool starting on his way down the Tree of Life. (Yes the kabbalah can be fun in a reading.) A.C wanted the card to come right at you in the face, but for me that’s messy (and can leave you with a red eye). Flipping the card around from the RWS deck the sun behind the Fool becomes the top Sephirot on the tree called Keter. Keter is the Will of the Devine. In it are the great abstract concepts of life, where everything begins. I made the sun into the 1000 petaled lotus of understanding whose petals stretch out over the rest of the back ground. The path The Fool takes on the tree goes off to the right to another strange little bubble of a Sephirot called Chokhmah. sooooo….WTF does this mean? The Fool is Divine Will beginning the path of earthly manifestation by starting towards the Pillar of Mercy. What you mean you can’t use that in a tarot reading? Well here is another way of saying it. The Fool is representative of what The Universe has planed for you. It is a change that is beginning in the very atoms of your spiritual being. It’s a change that will gradually come, as the Fool is way way way up there at the tippy tip top of the tree it’s going to take a bit for it to get down to Earth. So watch out for it. Strive for it. Stay on it’s path. Those that are familiar with the Grateful Dead note the Keep On Truckn’ walk of our Fool.
Elsewhere in this card are various other little goodies to keep you amused and talking:
The Fool is looking at the world through the eyes of transformation as he as a butterfly tattoo over his face. This manifestation of Divine Will is going to change the way one looks at things.
He controls the primal elements of fire and water in his hands.
Typically he has his hobo pouch with him that A.C fills with the zodiacal glyphs. Here our Fool is a light packer he has on his Zodiac Club t-shirt as the reminder that he is made up of all the stars.. or is it that all the stars are made up of him ? …..hmmmmmmm (inhale and watch Bell, Book and Candle)
The little white dog… gone… not a dog fan myself, but he is being followed by the Dove. It’s placement is above an behind his head. The Dove is The Divine Spirit under which the Fool is being guided, but while he is being moved by it he may not ultimately be aware of it.
This Fool LOVES a good tattoo and so the tiger of Bacchus, that menacing creature that is just one of the the dangers lurking rides with him at all times on his leg. Also note the tribal band of grapes representing earth and the caduceus on his arms.
His piercings give us things to think of as well. His nose gives us the symbol of Air completing the representations of the four elements. Not the four suits but the elements behind the suits. Remember this is a card of greater concepts then them. Also dangling from his ear is the Hebrew Letter Alph. Placed here as a way to remind the reader that one needs to listen to the pure word of The Universe, or Devine unfiltered.
The Water pouring out of the chalice provides the emotional path we are walking.
In the sketch drawing at his feet you see the faint outlines of the crocodile that will eventually be worked into the rocks and crevices making up the traditional cliff in the RWS card. I want it to be there but only if you look for it. From the BoT: “The tradition is that the crocodile was unprovided with the means of perpetuating his species. Not in spite of, but because of this, he was the symbol of the maximum of creative energy.”
Oh his fashionable cargo shorts are two strange cave painting like glyphs that when brought together become the Prince and Princess of the courts also being seeded in this card, and the Sun in his crotch… do I NEED to explain that one?
Early ramblings that may get longer, shorter or change as the project goes on but for me this is how I’m seeing the Fool in this deck. Hopefully I’ll have the color version started soon. I warned you I was not a fast artist….
Feel free to ask questions or post things you like and don't like. All art projects should allow all kinds of comments and criticism. Enjoy
Attachments
gregory
I can't WAIT for the coloured version. And as for how DEATH can top this card... 
baylys
Wow, this is so cool. I would have looked at the picture and said "trippy!" But having the notes as well is like "Über Trippy"
I'm hooked. Please tell me these notes you are writing (including the lighting of the joint) will all come with the deck as it's LWB?
I'm hooked. Please tell me these notes you are writing (including the lighting of the joint) will all come with the deck as it's LWB?
Cocobird55
Amazing! Looking forward to seeing more.
magpie9
*speechless With Awe*
Babalon Jones
You should assign a Dead song to each of the cards. Truckin' for the Fool of course. The Dead certainly have a large enough song library to choose from!
