a quick drawing lecture

The 'fixed' ones still have terribly thin necks, but the point still stands: people have throats, don't forget that. I was going to go into more detail about how once you realize this you can start doing things like the wattles on saggy old people, but I'm lazy.

I'm not singling anyone out for doing this; just saying I see this one a lot. It's hard to realize you're doing; I did this too for the longest time. It's real easy to think about constructing the head, and think about constructing the body, but then just half-ass in two lines to connect them.

Queen of Cups

Water of Water.

I was thinking of putting something floating on the water, and something half-visible in it, ala Escher's Three Worlds, but nothing really came together for it. And the ripple effect I was talking about for the reflection was either too subtle, or too much. So - simplify!

The other day I was out behind the Museum, looking down at the gently rippling water, and noticing the way the sun's reflection turned into wobbly searing loops of brightness, that left wavering afterimage trails. It was pretty cool. Someday I'll use that to create some impressionistic water - but not in this image.

Still just a day behind schedule, too.

Print available on Artspots.

counting

Hmm. My machine says the earliest creation date on a Tarot card is October 6. And I'll be finishing this thing up somewhere around the beginning of August. Nearly a year.

Looking back at the post dates of the images, January and February were a write-off - there's two pieces of other kinds of art, and the 10 of Swords right at the end of February. So toss those months from the reckoning: if I stay on schedule, I'll have the standard 78 cards and two extras done in eight months of work. Let's call it nine, to include the overflow that I'm sure will happen, and the remaining six or ten extras (two Fools, the Querent, the remaining 99s, and possibly the VOID Court).

Nine months of my life. Well, at least I don't think I'll have to spend the next twenty or so years raising it and putting it through college.

Now I know why so many people stop at two or three cards, or just the Majors. 3/4 of a year - if you're fast - is a big chunk of work. I can't imagine what it would be like if my art process was averaging one a week. Or longer.

And, you know, I never really made an official "tarot" icon, either. My current default is from the piece that ended up being repurposed for the Chariot, yeah, but I don't think of it as explicitly from the deck. There's something in that icon lack about my relationship to this project versus, say, my relationship to Absinthe, but I'm not sure what it is. Perhaps I feel like I didn't choose to do this; it chose me.

I joke about "the expansion sets" but you know what? When this is done, it's done; I want to get the fuck back to Absinthe, I want to move on to some new frontiers of media. I'll stay involved in it for getting it published and helping with the book, but I so do not want to spend another half a year doing alternate takes, or more add-ons. Maybe I'll revisit it when I'm sixty or something. Maybe never.

This is the biggest project I've done so far, but I don't think it's going to be the biggest ever. Absinthe is projected to be at least 150 pages, most with 3-5 panels on them. I guess that's what I do when I can knock out a full-color, detailed piece every three days without any problems. Do projects that involve a lot of them. I'm on my way towards forty and my brain has shifted to a longer view.