Illustrating The Moon
Welcome to The Moon, a place of self reflection, faith, and patience.
*insert record scratch sound*
If you are like me and find this a difficult place to find oneself, read on.
Examples from other tarot artists
Traditionally, this card is illustrated with a set of hounds howling at a full moon. There is a creek nearby where a lobster (?) is crawling out onto the shore. Lobster notwithstanding, the card has a feeling of celebration for the moon and it’s cycles.
The meaning of The Moon card, however, is hard to see in this imagery. Here are some examples of The Moon card from various tarot decks I use.
The Moon cards from my collection of tarot decks; see footnotes for artist credits.
The Moon
My understanding of The Moon card (gleaned from Modern Tarot, see resources below) is:
Faith in the unknown
All will be revealed
Trust the universe
Reflection on self.
I saw an opportunity to paint this card with the largest full moon I could imagine, reflecting in the enormous pool of the ocean itself.
My sketch of The Moon card, drawn on a long night in December.
Colored pencils and acrylic paint on paper.
A technique is born
I had an idea to include tiny spiral galaxies in my illustration, inspired by the images captured by the Webb Telescope. But there was no way I was going to be able to get that level of detail with masking fluid under watercolor.
I decided to maximize my layering technique for this illustration. The linework I painted on was minimal (see photo). After I scanned my painting, I uploaded it to Photoshop, then added my usual calligraphy and roman numeral layers.
At that point, I added my hand-drawn tiny galaxies I drew in Procreate. Layering these as digital image files on top of the watercolor painting did the trick.
My last feat was figuring out how to make the reflection look wavy. I applied masking fluid to the water area prior to painting with a chopstick. This gave the reflection area a rough, choppy look I wanted. After scanning the painting, I used the Smudge and Blur tools in Photoshop to smoosh my reflection painting, so that it appears a little wavy.
Here are some of the layers I created for this illustration:
The final illustration
When I sandwich all of these layers together in Photoshop, along with my painting, the final result looks like this. I love how it turned out. What do you think? Leave me a comment below! I love to hear from you.
The Moon card illustration from my forthcoming Tarot of These Times deck, anticipated 2026.
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Next up: The Sun ☀️
The next card in the Major Arcana I am illustrating is The Sun.
What do you think of this card?
Leave me a comment below
I read every comment, and I love to hear from you!
Footnotes
Materials and technique notes from this post
Blick Hot Press 100% cotton watercolor paper; EcoLine liquid watercolor paint and brush pens; Winsor & Newton masking fluid. I use an Epson Workforce Pro printer to print my drawings onto watercolor paper, using their water-resistant Durabrite ink.
Tiny galaxies, roman numerals, and calligraphy drawn by hand with Apple Pencil on iPad Pro using Procreate app, and added as image layers on top of scanned painting using Photoshop. Waves were created using masking fluid applied with the flat end of a bamboo chop stick. I made them more wavy by using the smudge tool in Photoshop on the scanned painting.
Roman numerals 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 Austen Rogers.
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 any of the content for this blog, my other blog Behind the Scenes, or this website.
