Revamping Playing Cards as Personal Oracles

Mariana

Gorgeous! And very inspiring, makes me want to try it too...
 

room

Forgot to show you the lovely backs. Also you can see some warping from the side--probably inevitable but with pressing it's not too bad. When I varnish them and they are wet again, I will try to nudge some of them back into shape.
 

room

Mariana said:
Gorgeous! And very inspiring, makes me want to try it too...

Hahaha, a dear artist friend of mine in South Africa is now off on a hunt for an old deck.

They're quite compelling. I can hardly wait until I start the one where I'm painting my own and doing monoprints.

How bad can anybody do? No matter what, it's a piece of art you've done in some way, and while you may feel critical of one card or another, taken as a whole they look fantastic, like you planned everything, even the mistakes.
 

Little Baron

How bad can anyone do? I like that. It gives us all the room to try and experience. And even though things do not always end up perfect, they have their own charm. I like this attitude of not being too perfectionist. I think that is how we really learn to appreciate things, don't you? I think we could all learn from being a bit more flexible as we work.

LB
 

room

Little Baron said:
How bad can anyone do? I like that. It gives us all the room to try and experience. And even though things do not always end up perfect, they have their own charm.

Exactly!

When I was in my teens and twenties, if things were not perfect I would get into a snit and destroy them. It's taken me 20 years to realize that no one is perfect, there is no such thing.

My oldest sister told me one time during my struggles with perfectionism: "Perfect is the enemy of good" and that's true. What's wrong with good, or excellent?

If you don't do something as well as you like, set it aside for a time and then go back to it and fix it or reuse it elsewhere. There is always a way to fix things. And chances are that when you do go back to it, it's not that bad anyway.

Frequently when making things, they don't turn out the way we imagined in our minds; they don't meet our expectations. So what? What does that mean? It means you just developed a different idea. Nothing wrong with that.

I saw an article by an artist on the web who advised not to plan too much--to play instead. This way you don't have a preconceived idea of product and expectation and you can create without feeling inadequate or that you didn't hit the mark.

Better to have the skill to develop and be flexible than be destroying good work, or being afraid to start.

I'm betting, that anyone who goes back and looks at something they made after three months or even a year later, will wonder what the heck they were so hung up about.
 

Debra

room said:
Exactly!

I'm betting, that anyone who goes back and looks at something they made after three months or even a year later, will wonder what the heck they were so hung up about.

That's what my parents say about me. ;)
 

Yurikome

Decided to de-lurk here and just join in on the praise. This is a really wonderful idea. I'm ont sure I'd try it though, seems like an awful lot of work (but just how satisfying it will be to use later!). But it got me thinking on making my own set of oracle cards, perhaps from photos developed in a smaller format..? Still working on it.

Can't wait to see more of your work :)
 

room

My joke of the day. . .

Many people here feel science is too awful in its logic or reason to contemplate, and has no business being connected to tarot cards.

I have a different view, and in honour of my view I am using a glass Petri dish for doing my monoprints on the second playing card deck. I am calling it The Petri Dish Paint Splodge Imperative.

Wikipedia says: "Petri dishes may be used to observe plant germination, small animal behaviour, or for other day-to-day laboratory practices such as drying
fluids in an oven and carrying and storing samples."

They forgot to mention how nicely small monoprints can be made off the bottom of the dish. What the h--l is the matter with them?

Beverley Sills would have enjoyed this joke. She would have made a song about it and sung it at Lincoln Center:

In honour of Mister Petri
We decorate this card
Splodging paint with logic
Creates the visual bard

Science is a creeping whisper
Your mind will hear tonight
When you harken to the call
Get out your Cad Red Light

Mister Petri knew the answers
He knew how to persevere
If he had known the monoprint
He'd have revamped with no fear
 

room

Significators ready to varnish--the varnish should deepen the saturation a bit. They look better in person, my photography skills are nonexistent.
 

Debra

Wow. Wow! Room, genius!