Tarot Tuesday (Wednesday): Knight of Swords

Maybe I should start calling these Tarot Wednesday since I've been good about forgetting to post on actual tuesdays.... Oh well! 

Today, I present to you the Knight of Swords:

10.5" x 17.25" - Oil on watercolor paper

 I really like all of the knights cards from this deck because they are all riding interesting animals. As you can see with my previous post with the Knight of Cups here. I love horses, but who doesn't want to paint a guy riding on a charging bull? 

For this one, I did a couple thumbnails to try to determine which route to go with the illustration: 

 

The first thumbnail was a bit pulled back with a more heroic pose, and the second option is based on the original Rider-Waite design seen above with the knight charging across the image. The writer and I decided to go with the second image and I was off to sketch. Due to time constraints I decided to do the sketch digitally: 

  I like to do most of the sketching and final work with the card template visible so that I can keep in mind the final crop and text placement for the printed version of the cards.

Well that's all for today. Until next week!

Tarot Tuesday: Ten of Cups

Here we are yet again at another Tuesday...time flies! Today I'd like to share a larger version of the Ten of Cups card. I had previously posted it here as a smaller version amongst the rest of the cups cards, but I thought it might be nice to show it larger so you can see details a little better.

10 of Cups - Digital.

 This is one of a few digitally painted cards that I've created for the deck. I've chosen to complete some of the cards digitally as opposed to painting simply because of time and size restraints. This painting would have taken me a lot longer, and I would have had to paint it much bigger than some of my other ones because of the multiple figures, and the many cups involved in the piece. Not to mention, the time it would have taken to properly paint and glaze the rainbow to make it look the way it should. Sadly, there's just not enough time to spend weeks on one of these illustrations. But despite those things, I'm fairly happy with how this one turned out. I've been learning a lot about digital painting over the few that I've completed digitally so far...I still feel like I'm doing it all wrong, but my mind works more as a physical painter than a manipulator of images like some of the digital painting videos I've watched seem to look like.

Anyway, thanks for looking and following along! See you next week!

Tarot Tuesday (Wednesday): The Hermit

Well, only three weeks in, and I'm already off my schedule with Tarot Tuesday! As usual, things have been crazy around the studio and I got sidetracked away from my post yesterday. But, better late than never I suppose...(Though, I hate being late.)

Today's painting is one of my favorites from the deck thus far:

The Hermit - 10" x 16.25" - Oil on watercolor paper.

The Hermit is one of the first of the Major Arcana paintings that I've completed for the deck. He is one of 22 Major Arcana cards that will appear in the Modern Spellcaster's Tarot.
I really enjoyed this guy because the card description was on the simpler side so I could focus more on the mood and character in the piece. Plus cloaked and bearded old guys are pretty high on my list of "always fun things to paint."

That's all for today! Until next time, have a nice week!

Tarot Tuesday - Five of Swords

Here we are at another Tuesday, so I'm continuing with posting a finished tarot illustration for the upcoming Modern Spellcaster's Tarot by Llewellyn Worldwide. Today, I'm sharing the art for the Five of Swords: 

11" x 18" Oil on watercolor paper

I really enjoy the swords suit as all of the descriptions call for snowy mountainous landscapes, wolves, fire, and of course swords. So you really can't go wrong. 

I haven't been given the actual text for the accompanying book that will be available with this deck, so I'm not entirely sure what all of the symbolism means, but I do know that the deck intends to follow the general Rider-Waite format. 

That's all for today, check back next week for another Tarot Tuesday.

New Year! New Post!

Hello there dear followers,
Once again I've managed to let this blog get coated in a nice thick layer of dust. My apologies for that...Often I find myself so enthralled in trying to stay on track with my work, that I don't want to spend the time to write up blog posts. I'm a terribly slow writer, so it takes me quite a while to put something together, no matter how small it is. But! Here we are in a new year yet again, so with that, I will do my best to post more regularly.

So what have I been up to lately?? Well, lot's of things, but mostly working away on the Modern Spellcaster's Tarot that I made a post about back in April. This project is huge, and I think I underestimated the challenge it would be especially on top of finishing graduate school, getting married, moving to a different state, and now holidays that have just passed. However, I am making good headway now that I have a good stretch of time ahead of me without any significant interruptions. So onward I battle! 

I have completed all of the Cups cards in the deck, and I put together a little image showing the whole group:

Ace-King of Cups, varying sizes, Oil on paper and digital.

 Here's some larger views of my favorites from the group (I like them all, but you know how it is): 

Two of Cups, Oil on masonite

Eight of Cups, Oil on paper

Knight of Cups, Oil on paper

Queen of Cups, Oil on paper

Additionally, I've completed all of the drawings for the Swords cards, and many initial sketches for the Major Arcana. There's still tons left to do, but I'll try to post more progress as I roll along here.

Also expect some new Magic updates in the coming days. Until then, Happy New Year! 

The Modern Spellcaster's Tarot: Judgement and Six of Swords

Today i'd like to talk a little about a new project that I've begun recently. 

I was contacted at the end of last year by Llewellyn Worldwide about illustrating a full tarot deck that was being written. Initially, I was a bit apprehensive about dedicating my time to completing 78 illustrations for the set, but the deadline was reasonable, so I agreed to do the project. In the past I have not been too familiar with how tarot decks work or what the cards mean, but I've always liked the imagery and format of them. I look forward learning a lot more about the cards as I work through and research for this deck.  

After a few months of wrapping up illustrations for my MFA among other freelance jobs, I was finally able to get started on some illustrations for the tarot set. The Modern Spellcaster's Tarot is based on the standard Rider-Waite deck, but is modernized with additional symbolism and imagery. The first two served more or less as samples to give the publisher and author an idea of my process and what the finished cards will look like. The two cards I was recommended to start with were Judgement and the Six of Swords, both being important cards in the set. The full meanings are a bit much for me to go into detail about here, but if you're interested you can read more about Judgement here and the Six of Swords here.

The author, Melanie Marquis, provided me with some great descriptions of what she was looking for in the images and I got to work. Here's the sketches with the original card designs from the Rider deck for comparison:

                   Six of Swords 11" x 18" Charcoal and digital 

                   Judgement 11" x 18" Charcoal and digital

And here's the paintings:

Six of Swords 11" x 18" Oil on masonite

Judgement 11" x 18" Oil on masonite

I'm pretty excited about getting into this deck as the subject matter and imagery is a bit different from my usual swords and sorcery, but I'm sure i'll be able to sneak some of that in here and there. Now that i'm wrapping up my MFA program in the next couple months i'll be working on and posting a lot more about this project. So stay tuned!

These paintings are available for purchase, if interested, contact me at murphyillustration@gmail.com