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Final Evaluation

Chosen Flipside words: Artificial/Natural

I chose these words because as soon as I saw them loads of ideas came to my head whereas with the other words I was quite stuck. The art I do in my own time generally surrounds artificial/natural as well which helped me with this. To make this theme more into my own thing, I used Paganism, specifically Wicca. Paganism is an umbrella term for many different religions, all with the same baseline belief that nature is beautiful. Pagan communities concentrate on different traditions, practices and gods. My mother is wiccan so I was raised with the beliefs of that. Choosing to pursue this as a theme allowed me to explore my religion more whilst documenting this experience in the form of art.

Amrit Brar is one of the few artists that has impacted and inspired my work. Amrit is the artist behind the well known, Marigold Tarot deck. This deck is based on skeletal designs and natural details but is still simplistic. I like this style of art as its simple yet effective and can be really detailed. This was one of the main inspirations for my decks designs, although my cards don't have the same theme, I used the same design technique. 

Another artist that inspires a lot of my work in both my FMP and personal work is John Kenn. John is a Danish artist who creates new, dark realities on post it notes. I like the messy yet detailed drawings he creates as well as his very heavy use of pen and ink. When rediscovering John I also discovered that pen and ink is one of my favourite mediums.

Mara Soares is the main artist that actually inspired parts of my work entirely. Mara is a previous WSC student, for one of her projects she created woodblock prints on witch hangings. Although I already knew I wanted to touch on this subject, I didn't know what medium to extend it into. From seeing Maras prints in a presentation I decided I wanted to do some sort of print as well.

My favourite piece of wider world research I have done is the song “18 Witches” by Thy Last Drop. The song is about the 18 witches hung in Bury St Edmunds in 1645 by Matthew Hopkins. Its interesting to be able to listen to a good song, and be able to learn something too.(https://thylastdrop.bandcamp.com/track/18-witches)

During my wider world research for my FMP I discovered an app called “Labrinthyos”. It allows people to learn about tarot in depth but in an easy way. It contains different lessons on each suit of the minor arcana and every card in the major arcana. I found this very useful as I could use it to make sure my cards link/ relate to the meaning of it.

My aim for this project was to show a little better that the witchcraft in paganism isn't necessarily bad or evil, and its actually a beautiful group of belief systems. Tarot cards can be misunderstood most of the time, they don't tell you your exact future, nor are they always right. Tarot provides guidance for lost or questioning souls who need answers. By creating a working deck, I can show people this. It took me a long time to decide what I wanted to do, I had been pondering tarot cards but didn't think I could do it. Because of this I decided to push myself out of my comfort zone and I'm glad I did.

During this project I experimented with many different techniques before I got to my final outcomes. Many I already knew such as: Lino and dry point printing, acrylic painting, collage, different types of drawing, simple photoshop processes and clay work. However I did learn a few new things like: Woodblock printing, box making and rune making. I'm glad that during this project I got the chance to practice and try new/old things to build my experience.

In my opinion, my most impactful and successful piece of art is the small series I did on the Bury St Edmunds witch hangings. As its simple its easy to look at and easy to know the meaning behind the print. The other print I did isn't related to the Bury hangings but the Salem Trials instead as they used: burning, hanging and drowning as execution methods. Although they aren't unique necessarily, they can evoke emotion to people who know the evens of the hangings and other witches as well which is what I was aiming for.

My Journey:

At the start of this project I knew that I wanted to do Artificial and Natural but I wasn't sure what I wanted to create. I created a few mind maps to help me envision my ideas and figure out what I wanted to do. After realising I wanted to do paganism it gave me some inspiration. Whilst doing this I was experimenting with different designs and mediums in the college workshops, I enjoyed doing this as it allowed me to try new things and spread my art over different mediums.

 After I experimented it came to choosing what to do for my final outcome. I was really stuck with what to do and it really stressed me out. The idea of making a tarot deck had been floating around for a while but I didn't think id be able to complete it. At the start of this year, however, I said I was going to push myself sol I did. My tarot cards started off as plain monochrome designs which looked quite boring so I added a splash of watercolour in the background of every card. This made my cards brighter and less boring and I'm glad I decided to do this.

Overall I am really pleased and proud of my tarot deck because, although its not what I expected, I think they look really nice and they came out as I envisioned at the start. If I were to display these I would paint a wooden board with different colours and stick each individual card on it, this way you can see them all clearly. During this I have learnt more about tarot cards and their meanings as well as how to draw hands etc.

If I was to display my cards anywhere, I would display them in The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall. They explore British magical practice and aim to show the diversity of magical practice respectfully. I think my work would fit in with the atmosphere of the building and help people learn who visit the museum.

I spent around 12+ hours a week working on my art throughout the entire FMP, 6+ hours each on my days off. I think this gave me a good balance between work and relaxing. I did this work on my living room floor as I haven't finished my studio yet. If I had to put music with my outcomes I would choose the album “The Sticks” by Mother Mother because that's what I listened to whilst making these.

10 words to describe my outcome could be: colourful, simplistic, decorative, bold, minimalistic, linear, magical, witchy, divination and bright.

Towards the start of this project I research Tarot and Oracle cards but mainly focused on Oracle because I knew how to use them. However I didn't realise at the time that I wanted to make my own deck, I researched them due to their key part in Wicca/Paganism.

divination, useful, beautiful

I then decided to draw an oracle card out of one of the decks I own purely because I didn't know what to do at the time, doing this helped me along my path of realising I wanted to make my own.

contrasting, detailed, linear

To help make my mind up I researched different decks and found some really beautiful ones.

minimalistic, simplistic, monochrome

After a lot of thinking I decided to do a deck, but my goal at the start was to do 6 of each suit but I actually managed to complete all 78 cards in time without rushing!

vibrant, bright, insightful

There's a few things I can do now that I couldn't before, but not many. I can now woodblock print and I have also started to remember brief definitions for some tarot cards, this is good if making decks is something I want to go further in.

When writing my initial proposal, I had literally no clue where I wanted to go with this and was really stressed out, I mentioned Tarot cards in my proposal so I didn't look unorganised, I didn't think I was actually going to do it. Between then and now I have experimented with different ideas, brainstormed outcomes that I could do and experimented with mediums and everything I did pretty much lead back to the idea of Tarot cards. This scared me at first as 78 is a lot of cards, but I still pushed myself to do it. Most of my prints are actually either based on or could be a Tarot card and I did this without meaning to. 

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The major arcana (3/3)

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The major arcana (2/3)

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The major arcana (1/3)

The major arcana contains cards that dont go in suits. Most of these cards have a more poignant meaning . To choose the colour for each card I used a colour that I thought treated to the theme of the card. The imagery came from my imagination and most things can be found in decks as they're common symbolism.

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The suit of pentacles (2/2)

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The suit of Pentacles (1/2)

This is the suit of pentacles so obviously each card has the correct amount of pentacles on each. The pentancle is a symbol of protection and is used in almost anything in paganism as it's quite universal. I used green as pentacles remind me of the earth.

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The suit of Cups (2/2)

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The suit of Cups (1/2)

This is the suit of cups, another common suit among tarot cards. I chose blue for this suit to represent water as that's what I associated with the cups. The imagery is challices, potion bottles, cups and glasses. These can be found in most decks when researching, normally in the older, French decks.

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The suit of Wands (2/2)

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The suit of wands (1/2)

This is the suit of swords, one of the four suits in the general minor arcana. Each cards represents the number of wands shown. I chose purple as a watercolour background as that's the first colour I thought of when making these. All imagery came from my imagination

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The suit of swords (2/2)

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The suit of swords (1/2)

This is a suit based on swords, common in most decks. Every card includes the right amount of swords corresponding to the number. The style of these is cards is relatively minimalistic but also similar to tattoo designs. Everything on these cards came from my own imagination, copying cards would make them weak in their power.

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Final Outcomes

This displays both the minor and major arcana in whole , I will go into detail about each. I used watercolour and fine liner to create these cards. They include lots of imagery that I couldnt get primary research from.

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Labrinthyos

Labrynrho is a free app that has really helped me with this journey of making a tarot deck. You can do online readings for yourself.

Take lessons to strengthen your knowledge

Aswell as learn each individual definition of the cards.

I used this app mainly for definitions of cards to help me get an idea of what symbolism to use.

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The Moon Power Tarot

The moon Power Tarot is a deck of 78 beautiful illustrations created by Charlie Quintero. The main colours in this deck are pastel blues and purples etc but the contrast with the black background makes them more vibrant. With most cards its clear what they are ( like the 2 of pentacles has two pentacles) however this deck has managed to hide them well, leaving little Easter eggs within each card.

I think this deck is magical and elegant as well as surprising with its colours and imagery.

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The Marigold Tarot

The Marigold Tarot was created by Amrit Brar and is in a very simplistic and  minimalistic format. They have a black background with white ink drawings and gold details which adds a certain elegance to the cards. The theme for these cards is mainly skeletal but has hints of nature poking through.

I'm pretty sure out of all the decks i have discovered over the past month or so, this is one of my favourites as its very similar to how i draw but with a lot of finer details.

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The Apparition Tarot

The Apparition Tarot Deck was created by Mary Evans and is her 7th deck made. The style of her decks is a lot different to ones I've seen before. It reminds me of a colouring book with the simplistic but more colourful designs. Mary herself describes her work as “naïve line work that dance and tumble on the paper”. 

Although this isn't a style I'm normally drawn to or use myself, i still think these cards are very interesting and modern.