9 of Swords

[egypturnash]

Despair, cruelty, lying, subtle dishonesty. Yet another unpleasant card from the high end of the Swords.

I've been working on this one for a while; it was in progress when I had to drop everything to go down to New Orleans. I fooled with it in fits and starts over this very complicated week.

The swords-in-word-balloons was a sudden bit of inspiration that let me finish it. I didn't know what to do with the last couple of swords; I tried hanging them on a suggested wall but it wasn't working.

Edit: Less colors, slight composition/contrast tweak. Still not spectacular but much better. Less is, quite often, more.

Print available on Artspots.

Comments

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

My intent in the drawing was 'steepled fingers' and I thought it was just waaay too confusing a silhouette in the earlier version. Though that reading of the original version certainly fits the card in general...