I wasn't originally going to color it this much, as the original black-and-white illustrations have a great look with no help needed from me. But with base illustrations coming from a wide range of sources, some of them vibrantly colored, this would produce a really ragged, schizophrenic looking deck. Better to color the black and white sources than bleed the color out of the colored ones, I thought... especially as a lot of tarot readers rely on color as part of the symbolism.
There will be some cards that I don't have to color at all, and others -- like this one -- that need a complete coloring job. For this, I'm looking at real hand-colored Victorian prints to see how they did it, and trying to emulate what I see.
Likewise, there will be cards like this one with base illustrations that I don't have to alter at all, in any way... and there will be cards where I am forced to collage entirely new illustrations out of a range of base elements. We'll see how that goes.
The pip cards will be -- in the Marseilles style -- just that: pip cards without significant illustrations, just arrangements of wands, cups, etc. -- although I do hope to work Mister Punch somewhere into the design of each one. Again, we'll see how that goes. If I've learned anything over the years, it's that you always start with a definite plan and a clear direction -- and then end up making new plans and going off in entirely different directions. It's just an occupational hazard.
Hope you like this first card, and that it gives you a rough indication of what the deck is going to look like. Thanks for your kind interest -- and I would love to hear your thoughts.
"That's the way to do it!"
-- Frede.
