Illustrating Anguish: the Three of Swords
The meaning of the Three of Swords
The suit of swords contains some of the roughest, toughest cards in the tarot. Aside from the Death card in the tarot’s Major Arcana, the three of swords is right up there for cards nobody wants to get in a reading. At least, I don’t.
The Three of Swords can be interpreted as heartbreak, mental anguish, love gone wrong. I interpret it differently. I see this card as representing the age-old battle between the mind and the heart, or thoughts vs. emotions.
As an over-thinker, I can relate to the human tendency to try to think our way out of emotional situations. When really, we need to feel our way through them.
Easier said than done.
☔️ My concept for this card is a heart holding on to an umbrella, which shields if from the storm that rages above it. Under the umbrella, the sun is shining. The heart is protected from the tumult of the mind.
Scroll to the end of this post to see my full card design!
Three of Swords tarot card examples
This card is super famous, and the original concept was drawn and painted by Pamela Coleman Smith, artist of the Raider-Waite Smith deck (see card in the upper-right corner of the photo). This illustration is cloned in many other tarot decks, and is also a popular tattoo design. Here are several examples from tarot decks I use.
See footnotes for artist credits.
How I made this card
I painted this illustration using a “wet-in-wet” watercolor technique with black India Ink and liquid watercolor. (See materials list in footnotes below.)
I layered the scanned painting under my linework drawing, then added the sunglow under the umbrella with Photoshop as a separate layer on top.
The final illustration
What do you think? Leave me a comment below! I love to hear from you.
The Three of Swords card illustration from my forthcoming Tarot of These Times deck, anticipated late 2026. © Registered copyright Molly Chidsey, all rights reserved.
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Footnotes
Materials and technique notes from this post
Blick Hot Press 100% cotton watercolor paper; EcoLine liquid watercolor paint and brush pens by Royal Talens; Winsor & Newton masking fluid. I use an Epson Workforce Pro printer to print my drawings onto watercolor paper, using their water-resistant Durabrite ink.
Linework is drawn by hand with Apple Pencil on iPad Pro using Procreate app, and added as image layers on top of scanned painting using Photoshop.
Roman numerals, hand-drawn linework, and all calligraphy were drawn by hand using Procreate, Apple Pencil and iPad Pro.
Artists of other tarot cards featured in this post
Clockwise from top left: Rider-Waite Tarot, illustrated by Pamela Coleman Smith; Modern Witch Tarot Deck by Lisa Sterle; The Wild Unknown Tarot by Kim Krans; The Gentle Tarot by Mari in the Sky; Rainbow Heart Tarot by Rachel Rosenkoetter; and The Reclaimed Tarot, ReClaim it! PDX, collage by various local artists.
Learn about tarot
Want to learn more about tarot? I highly recommend the book Modern Tarot: Connecting with Your Higher Self through the Wisdom of the Cards by Michelle Tea.
A note about Ai and this project
I do not use Ai (artificial intelligence) to write the content of this blog or to create illustrations. I also do not allow Ai training. See here for my copyright notice.
