Illustrating The Tower
The Tower card is a doozy. When it appears in a reading, you can bet that sudden change is on the menu. Maybe that change has happened and we are reeling from it, or it’s headed our way. It’s dramatic and probably unwanted. But as we learned with the Wheel of Fortune card, change is constant. The difference with the Tower card is that change is… worse.
Examples from other tarot artists
Traditionally, this card is illustrated with a literal tower being struck by lightning, cracking in half, and it’s occupants jumping (or falling) off into the flames below. Not pretty.
The Tower cards from my collection of tarot decks; see footnotes for artist credits.
Sketch #1: The radio tower
I grew up with a radio tower in the lot adjacent to my backyard. I remember watching the red blinking lights at night and feeling a sense of connection to the world beyond my small Ohio yard.
The concept had a fatal flaw, however. The Tower card is about receiving an urgent, transformative message from the universe, not sending a message. The radio tower, then, was out.
I still like the sketch. Just not for The Tower.
My original sketch for The Tower card featured a tall radio tower sending messages to the universe.
Colored pencils and ink on paper.
Sketch #2: A Tornado
Growing up in Ohio, every spring was riddled with thunderstorms that could turn on a dime and become a terrifying tornado. During these storms, we kept the TV in our kitchen on. The news crawl at the bottom of the screen would warn us of tornado warnings in our county.
We spent these “tornado warning” storms in the basement, my brother and I huddled on a soft blanket under my mom’s heavy sewing table. We usually played games, while my mom played with us and tried to make us less anxious about the storm outside.
My dad, however, would stand on the porch or side yard, closely watching the sky. I never knew if he wanted to see a tornado in real life, or just be able to protect us if one actually came to tear our house off the foundation.
Either way, we never did see a tornado in our small town. Despite this, I fear them to this day, their ability to uproot a community in a matter of moments, rearranging reality suddenly and completely.
My second sketch of The Tower card, inspired by tornado drills of my youth in Ohio.
Liquid ink on paper.
As with all of my tarot card designs, I began the final illustration by re-creating my sketch on my iPad with Apple Pencil and Procreate app. Here is a sped-up video of the drawing process for my Tower tornado.
Next, I added liquid watercolor over the drawing, which I printed on hot-press watercolor paper. For this illustration, I wet the paper completely first, to give it a melted, rainwashed look. I used only Ecoline liquid watercolors on this illustration.
The Tower painting as it dries on my table.
Liquid watercolor on paper.
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The final illustration
After scanning my painting and uploading it into Photoshop, I added the border line, then added my original drawing of the tornado and path back on top of the painting layer to make the illustration more crisp. I also added the roman numeral and calligraphy on top this way.
Here is the final result.
The Tower card illustration from my forthcoming Tarot of These Times deck, anticipated 2026.
Next up: The Star 💫
The next card in the Major Arcana I am illustrating is The Star.
What do you think of this card?
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Footnotes
Materials 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.
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.
