My 1970s Tarot

[Pet Jeffery]

Before I write anything about this, I'll post this link, so that we know what I'm talking about:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...3&l=7578645b86

A tidy computer program has placed the cards in alphabetic order from Ace of Cups to Two of Wands. A number of the major arcana (such The Fool) are under T for "The". If one clicks on an image, it will bring up the whole card.

[Le Fanu]

I like that deck. I like the roughness of it, the handwriting, the symbols, the colours, the unusual composition. Can't put my finger on it but I think you have created a very unusual deck. Love the details like the blotch on the 2 of Swords. It looks like the kind of deck that a Golden Dawn member would have to make as part of their journey... And it's packed with fascinating iconography. Well done.

[gregory]

Nice ! Shall you publish ?

It's very - I'm not sure how to say this - the word that comes to mind is personal. In that it is different and yet the same (part of TAROT !) and clearly comes from an individual mind. Does that make any sense ?

[Pet Jeffery]

Thank you very much Le Fanu and Gregory.

I have no current intention to publish, as such, although I do have some thoughts of publishing a book with the cards reproduced in colour, together with some commentary.

The pack is very personal.

I intend, over the following weeks or months to post details of how I came to paint the cards, my procedure in studying and then painting them, etc. These may well include how there came to be a red blotch at the top of the two of swords (which is part of a larger story, so I won't go into it now). Other stories include how the image of The Devil came to be partly smudged... and other images (such as the Queen of Swords) were blurred for a different reason.

A lot of what happens in painting a tarot seems random, but may be significant. After all, the tarot relies upon drawing significance from the random fall of cards.

[Babalon Jones]

I like your cards a lot, and really look forward to reading your stories about them.

(Funny, your "red blotch" and commentary thus far reminded me that on the originals of the set of cards I painted, there is a small red blotch on the Emperor that was my partner's blood. Seems appropriate, he is very masculine and an Aries rising. But I can't remember how it got there right now. I shall have to ask him, he has a much better memory than I do. It was nothing very dramatic, but still as you say could be interesting.)

[starlightexp]

I think these are great. There is a rawness to them but yet the art has a refinement and def style to it. I for one would buy this set

[Wee_Gypsy]

Originally Posted by Pet Jeffery

I have no current intention to publish, as such, although I do have some thoughts of publishing a book with the cards reproduced in colour, together with some commentary.


.

I like it!!! Kuduos to you, Pet Jeffery! I Woulden't mind if you should published it --but like you were saying the deck personal to you, so in the end it is up to you , whatever you feel most comfortable with, since the link is here, I can enjoy your tarot art online. Cool deck though!


-Wee_Gypsy

[karenquilter]

Looks good to me. I see a lot of slick decks, this one stands out.
K

[Pet Jeffery]

Thank you all.

To paint my tarot, I bought two sheets of posterboard, which is quite thick card. They were red on one side and white on the other. I cut each board into forty cards. I can't recall the process, but the straightness of the cards' edges argues that I used a long straightedge and a craft knife. As I certainly didn't own such a knife at the time (or a suitable straightedge) I must have borrowed the tools for the purpose.

I painted the aces, then the twos, and so on. When I painted these early cards, I had a single tube of grey watercolour paint. All of my other paints (not many of them) were cheap solid blocks of watercolour. (I was extremely poor, and buying paint was a real issue.) At the time I ate quite a lot of dried onion (since I dislike crying). The plastic tops from the onion pots made adequate palettes for mixing colours. Fortunately, the limited colour range rather suited these early cards. Then, to my surprise, a friend of a friend gave me a box of gouaches -- maybe two dozen tubes of paint, with a really good range of colours. My benefactor was someone I hardly knew. He worked in the design department of a local factory (it manufactured linoleum). Giving me the paints, he said that they'd been lying around at work, not being used, and he thought I could make better use of them than anyone else. As far as I know, he didn't know I was painting a tarot pack. Or maybe someone had mentioned it to him, I don't know. At the time, I didn't question the gift. I thanked him nicely, and put the gouache to work.

A glance at the cards should show that the colour range was greatly extended fairly early in the painting process.

With the gouache, I could also use different painting techniques -- notably over-painting one colour with another. The effect of this can clearly be seen in a number of cards.

All of the paint was water soluble. I was well aware that cards could be destroyed by spilt liquid. I'm no stranger to knocking over mugs of tea... in fact, I knocked one over yesterday or the day before. So, I covered the cards with watercolour varnish (which I applied with a brush). The varnishing led to the red blob at the top of the Two of Swords, and a number of other unintended details...

But it's growing late (gone twenty to one in the morning). I'll post about the varnish problems next time.

[Simone95]

Its a very intriguing deck! I love it! Thanks for sharing it. Cant wait to read more of your creation stories!