Thank you for sharing this activity. I’ve been tempted to do something similar, but have not started. I look forward to following along on your progress.

It looks great! I wouldn’t worry so much about details, have fun with it and enjoy the experience! 

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Also can we talk about how PCS drew that hand? The weirdly long fingers and the bizarre thumb? I will never feel bad about not being good at hands again!

Lillie always used to say that hands were THE hardest thing to draw...

You look to be doing great - I started to colour a BOTA deck and was so horrified at the result I had to buy another copy and NOT colour it.

52 minutes ago, gregory said:

I started to colour a BOTA deck and was so horrified at the result I had to buy another copy and NOT colour it.

I bought the BOTA deck as well and have not touched it. I like the idea of doing this from a printout and might try copying the images. I bought Barbara Walker’s hand colored BOTA deck and that is a treasure to me.

You’re motivating me, @Laura Borealis. 

Thank you for sharing. Reminds me the Tarot Lady has a coloring book. What a great way to be with the cards.

On 3/6/2024 at 9:41 PM, FindYourSovereignty said:

Thank you for sharing this activity. I’ve been tempted to do something similar, but have not started. I look forward to following along on your progress.

Thanks! I'd love to see yours if you do that. We could start a thread and get folks to join in.

I thought about getting a BOTA also, it's so close to the RWS majors but the differences are intriguing.

On 3/7/2024 at 3:11 AM, Raggydoll said:

It looks great! I wouldn’t worry so much about details, have fun with it and enjoy the experience! 

True, the details aren't that important, the process is... but I'm a perfectionist type and have to work on chilling out. 😸 Thank you!

On 3/7/2024 at 5:09 AM, gregory said:

 

Lillie always used to say that hands were THE hardest thing to draw...

 

You look to be doing great - I started to colour a BOTA deck and was so horrified at the result I had to buy another copy and NOT colour it.

That sounds like me. I've thrown out a couple decks that I messed up by trying to alter them (learned the hard way that I'm NOT a trimmer).

Lillie's right about hands. 😾

On 3/7/2024 at 9:07 PM, Jewel13 said:

Thank you for sharing. Reminds me the Tarot Lady has a coloring book. What a great way to be with the cards.

You're welcome! I just looked up her coloring book and it looks nice. Also there are some secondhand on Amazon quite cheap!

Oh that is great to know about the secondhand!

With newer, better colored pencils I have done one more. Really thinking about printing them out smaller so this is less work! These are still not artist quality pencils but they were free for me, so I will not quibble.

I plan to study a bit on each card as I go. I have Understanding Tarot by Pam Richards (from the library) which focuses on the RWS, and she goes into each detail, from the main figures and symbols to the hills and houses in the background. Sometimes I think she goes overboard: "Each of their cups has five decorative balls shown, and so, individually, their cups are communicating a need for truth." Or, y'know, five balls was how many fit when Pamela was drawing them... 😸 But the book is helpful for seeing stuff I'd never noticed before, and offering a potential interpretation.

This is amazing! Ive been working on getting a deck to colour in myself, i definitely like how you did the pink cloud, it ads a personal touch to it :). 

On 3/14/2024 at 1:06 PM, Alex said:

This is amazing! Ive been working on getting a deck to colour in myself, i definitely like how you did the pink cloud, it ads a personal touch to it :). 

 

Thanks! I might revisit the pink cloud when I re-do that one. 😸

Unfortunately my phone/camera is messed up so I can't share any progress till I get that resolved.

I decided to go smaller, which is working better for me. Though the ones I'm working with now are actually a tad smaller than standard tarot size. Also unfortunately my printer doesn't like the cardstock I've got - I tried printed on ordinary printer paper and there were no smears or speckles, but there are with the cardstock. I also found my watercolor pencils and I'm experimenting with those. I love the look but again, they aren't playing well with my cardstock. Even a tad too much water and the fibers start to lift up. So I need to look at better cardstock. I didn't expect to have to LEARN stuff! but it's good for the brain cells 😹

I purchased and printed a deck. All cards arrived except one. One card missing. I think it was the 4 of cups. How does that even happen? I suspect it's no accident. 

About that weird thumb. I think it's an optical illusion. If you think the thumb is nearest you, oddly wrapped around the far side of the cup, then yes, it does look weird.  But the pinky finger is nearest, meaning the thumb is farthest, on the opposite side of the cup. What we see if the entire edge of the hand that leads into the thumb. I think. If that makes any sense.  When I looked at it that way, the whole edge of the hand that becomes the thumb, then it looked more normal. Also it's very late and maybe my eyeballs just aren't working right!

I like the pink cloud!

I would definitely contact the seller of the deck download @Rootwood, they haven't fulfilled a complete deck to you, as sold 🙂 

6 hours ago, Rootwood said:

I purchased and printed a deck. All cards arrived except one. One card missing. I think it was the 4 of cups. How does that even happen? I suspect it's no accident. 

About that weird thumb. I think it's an optical illusion. If you think the thumb is nearest you, oddly wrapped around the far side of the cup, then yes, it does look weird.  But the pinky finger is nearest, meaning the thumb is farthest, on the opposite side of the cup. What we see if the entire edge of the hand that leads into the thumb. I think. If that makes any sense.  When I looked at it that way, the whole edge of the hand that becomes the thumb, then it looked more normal. Also it's very late and maybe my eyeballs just aren't working right!

I like the pink cloud!

That's so weird about your missing card! Hope you can get that resolved.

I got mine from an Etsy seller, shop name is DailyTarotDraw.

I think we're seeing the thumb the same way, but the proportions seem off to me. I know the cup is resting in the palm, but the thumb looks as if it branches off back where the bones diverge instead of where a thumb naturally does. If that makes sense! I don't know. And I don't hate it. But it does make me feel better about being Bad at Hands as an artist. 😸

I should get back on this project. My life's just been unsettled lately. Also I have a different direction in mind for this project currently and want to play around with it before committing to it.

OK - if you'll forgive my crude drawing that I drew with my finger on my phone screen in 60 seconds - and obviously I'm exaggerating - but I see the thumb as branching off the hand too far back which makes it weirdly long. I know it's just the angle or whatever. But my mind interprets it like that. It looks like an alien hand almost. Which since it's meant to be Divine - maybe that works -

It's so interesting though how our minds interpret what we see. And sometimes we simply cannot unsee something, or it takes great effort. There was a discussion somewhere here about a card in the Wild Unknown, where there's a horse on the card, but they saw it as something else (I don't remember what). I looked up the card and could not see what they saw, at all. I did manage to see someone else's interpretation (a calf? I think) but not the other. And I'm not saying they're wrong. I do think it's meant to be a horse, the way I saw it, but brains are weird. If you've ever had someone trying to point out a bird to you and they're describing exactly what branch it's on, and you just can't see it! All you see is branch! Then the branch moves and it turns into a bird. That's so interesting to me, that our brains do that!

@Laura Borealis  I think they said they saw a fox in the Wild Unknown.  A fox? I looked. Nope. That was a horse from the second I laid eyes on it. A sad, depressed horse. Head low. Horses here that stand around like that get a dose of dewormer. 

I think that thumb (original on card) might have benefitted from a bit more detail added. It kind of does look like a big wiener flopping around.  Says me, who can't draw anything and was pretty impressed with your phone sketch doodle!