Of all the things I could draw
OMG 😬 … I am drawing a frieking TAROT DECK. That’s a whopping 78 illustrations, from scratch. No big deal, I can do this.
A sketch of an idea.
This is the backstory of how I started drawing tarot cards, literally and figuratively.
I found the tarot, or it found me, during a very rough time in my life. I was in chronic eye pain, the pandemic raged on, and I was on a leave of absence from my job to help care for my dad, who was undergoing chemo and radiation treatment for cancer.
Not. Fun.
I am not a religious person, but I would consider myself a spiritual person. There I was, in my mid-40’s, trying to rekindle a relationship with the divine. The universe? I had no idea.
In other words, I had nothing to lose.
October 2, 2018
Tarot reading, notes from my journal
Past-Present-Future three card spread
Past: 8 of Wands (sudden change, as if struck by lightning)
Present: 6 of Wands (a victory, celebration)
Future: King of Wands (a creative leader and healer)
So. Many. Wands.
What are wands, you may ask? Wands, one of the four suits of the tarot, represent our creative energy, vitality. They are represented by the element of Fire. 🔥
Learning to draw, cards.
A year later, in 2019, I applied to an art certificate program at PNCA. That way I could take classes at night and on weekends, and continue working full-time in my non-art career.
I started my first class in January of 2020. The rest is history.
By 2021, I knew that I was interested in illustration, and I also had collected a few tarot decks for my own divination and meditation practice. Amazingly, PNCA offered a course by Rainbow Heart Tarot deck designer and PNCA alumni Rachel Rosenkoetter.
Rachel gave us assignments like illustrating major and minor arcana cards, like The Hermit card below, which I created for a class assignment in ink and watercolor.
At that time, I didn’t know I had what it takes to tell stories with drawings. I just somehow believed that I could do it, despite my lack of formal training as an artist. Rachel encouraged me to keep drawing, so I did.
Self-portrait. An early sketch I made of The Hermit card, from an illustration class I took in 2021.
Sketching through the winter
Fast-forward to April 2024. I bought a dedicated sketchbook, and labeled 78 pages, one for each card of the deck. I was going to draw the cards, literally and figuratively. I would draw one card at a time, illustrating it as I went along.
I started in earnest last December of 2024, drawing daily. I took two solo trips away from home to get in lots of sketch time. I drew so much and so often that I got “writers’ elbow,” similar to tennis elbow, but from gripping a pen instead of a racket. Talk about the power of the pen!
The log page from my sketchbook, where I kept track of how many cards I had sketched, and how many were left to go. I used my favorite sketchbook, a hardbound Archer & Olive A5 notebook with 130 gsm paper.
Ok, now what?
About a week ago, I finished the 78’th and final sketch. Interestingly, the last card I drew was Temperance. A major arcana card whose meaning has eluded me for years. But that is a story for another day.
The concepts for each card are safely nestled in my sketchbook, but I have so much more to do. Each card must be re-drawn in Procreate, then printed and hand-painted with ink and watercolor. Then the illustrations need to be scanned, digitized, and exported as print-ready image files.
That’s a lot of work! But I am in it for the long haul, and I am so grateful to have you with me along the way.
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