YATD (Yet Another Tarot Deck)

[remod]

I fell in love with this new drawing tool I found, so, after my I Ching deck, I've decided to try a new path into Tarot decks.

So far I only made two cards: The Magician and The Hermit. I share them here for your comments and feedback.
Please stop me before it's too late 🙂

[DanielJUK]

I am loving this art @remod I hope you will keep making more. They are very stylised but cute 🙂

(I know I should be saying put down the drawing tool but they are fun!)

[gregory]

What's the tool you are using here ?

[remod]

It's an online tool that helps you create the image you have in mind.
I would rather not go too much into the deatails because I'd like you to form your judgement on the result (these two cards and the ones I posted for my I Ching deck) rather than on the process. (I found it by chance through Google).

What I really like is that the images I can create with this tool have a strong affinity with what I want to represent (see the Magician, for example) yet they leave space for further interpretations.
This is maybe more relevant for the I Ching cards, and I'm trying to understand if that was applicable to Tarots as well.
The question is: do this type of images help in better interpreting the divination response? Do they suggest symbols or point of view that other images would not?

This is what I'm courious to understand.

 

[katrinka]

It's not for me, THB. Too much unidentifiable stuff.
They could be used as a Rorschach, but that says more about the beholder than the question.

[remod]

That's true, the space I see they leave is in the eye of the beholder.

I guess I'm biased by the fact that I used them to create cards for the I Ching where the problem is that any "clear" image would fail to capture the meaning of, in my case, the trigram.

In the meantime I had done another Tarot card: The Tower:

 

[Rupicapra]

Interesting. Are you using an AI art program like wombo for this?

 

edit add on: I could spend days on wombo!

Edited January 28, 2022 by Rupicapra
add on

[remod]

Spot on! 🙂

We can say that I'm trying to "steer it" towards the desired image, rathare than drawing it myself ...

 

But as I said I'm more interested in the result than the process.

 

And, btw, i find it very fun and addictive 🙂

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by remod

[gregory]

OH MY wombo is fun.... and yes, addictive.

 

But I prefer cards that are actually designed by their creator....

[katrinka]

Yes, exactly.
A wombo Moon card leaves much to be desired. 🤣

[remod]

Yeah, "steering" it might be a long process 😁
This is what I managed to do for "The Moon" so far. But I think I can do better.

[remod]

1 hour ago, gregory said:

But I prefer cards that are actually designed by their creator....

Yes, and that would be true for most people.
I did not openly said how I got the cards from the beginning because I wanted you all to look at them without preconception, but it's no secret that I can't draw, I said it in other posts.
However what about those that use Photoshop to put together part of stock photos and add filters? Does it count as "designed by themselves"? Or should they at least take the picture themselves? What about the other I Ching cards that I made using Inkscape and Gimp (the ones with lines and marks), do they count as something I "designed myself"?

Today wombo is just a fun game to use but in the future, with more sophisticated tools, I suspect that it will be tough to set a demarcation line.

Edited January 28, 2022 by remod

[katrinka]

12 minutes ago, remod said:

Yeah, "steering" it might be a long process 😁
This is what I managed to do for "The Moon" so far. But I think I can do better.

 

Tweaking the text helps to a point, but don't think it's possible not to get the unidentifiable debris, at least not until the technology improves a great deal. I suppose you could photoshop it out, but what does that leave you with?
 

6 minutes ago, remod said:

However what about those that use Photoshop to put together part of stock photos and add filters? Does it count as "designed by themselves"? Or should they at least take the picture themselves?

 

Collage is an art like anything else. It's a matter of crafting. You have people who can do it seamlessly and beautifully, like Alex Ukolov. Baba has done some excellent decks. And yes, those are their designs, whether they use their own photos, antique prints, or both. Those decks take years to complete.

Conversely, we've all seen those bad collage decks that look like this poorly executed Mod Podge done with magazine clippings:

 

That was also someone's design, though I suspect at least some of the photos are copyrighted. (That would be really, really not OK if they intended to publish.)

 

And you have someone like Ciro, who does digital art. Sometimes he gets people telling him that "the computer does it." NO. He does the drawing and painting, he just uses tools like digital pens instead of  paint and canvas. It takes an artist to do what Ciro does.

But using something like wombo really IS "the computer doing it." All you're doing is typing bits of text.

[remod]

Just came to my mind that one could play with the tool and come out with a set of images they feel comfortable with and create they own personal deck.
Wouldn't it be cool to have your own, unique, set of cards, each one reminding you of the meanings you have always associate to that card? Doing it with wombo would surely take a long time but could be interesting.
 

Edited January 28, 2022 by remod

[MuninnMissinHuginn]

41 minutes ago, remod said:

However what about those that use Photoshop to put together part of stock photos and add filters? Does it count as "designed by themselves"? Or should they at least take the picture themselves? What about the other I Ching cards that I made using Inkscape and Gimp (the ones with lines and marks), do they count as something I "designed myself"?

 

These questions have long been in the art world.  Starting with the camera lucida and the camera obscura (which some argue Vermeer used - see Tim’s Vermeer).  At the time this was not controversial as it was seen as the tool of a craftsman. As art was seen as a craft, to limit the tools would be like telling a carpenter they can only use hand tools and not any power tools.  Then along came photography and that became a huge argument whether photos were even art….

Oscar Wilde argued the difference between Art (something that moved the viewer or created a conversation between the viewer and the artist) and art ( paint on a canvas).  

So, this question of creation has a long and contentious history, where the definition of “What is art?” has changed and moved often.  Getting to an answer is like chasing a rainbow.

 

How could I forget Duchamp’s Urnal - found art!

Edited January 28, 2022 by MuninnMissinHuginn

[remod]

Just to be sure, guys.
I'm not seriously saying that using these type of tools is a substitute for actual drawings. Nor do I like the term "AI art" that seems to fly around these type of things.

 

Nevertheless, I find the process intriguing. What I call "steering" is not much different (in my mind) than apply Photoshop filters to existing image.

Actually this is exactly what wombo does, it puts together a bunch of random images (suggested by the words) and applies a "painting style" to the result, you may like the result or start it over.

It's fun and I find some of the images inspiring. If I had to say, I'm not against it.

 

[MuninnMissinHuginn]

@remod,

 

Art taste and definition is intensely personal, so for what it is worth, I like the inscrutable aspect of the cards you have created. (And before understanding you were using that program, if I were to be honest I was slightly, no more than slightly jealous, of your ability to create something so quickly!  Even when using Procreate or Photoshop type programs I work on a geological time scale 🤣).

Edited January 28, 2022 by MuninnMissinHuginn

[remod]

18 minutes ago, MuninnMissinHuginn said:

How could I forget Duchamp’s Urnal - found art!

 

... or his bicycle wheel? 😆

I feel myself even more excused since I'm not trying to do art (nor Art) but just creating "tools" to help focusing one's mind.

Edited January 28, 2022 by remod

[remod]

38 minutes ago, katrinka said:

 

Collage is an art like anything else. It's a matter of crafting. You have people who can do it seamlessly and beautifully, like Alex Ukolov. Baba has done some excellent decks. And yes, those are their designs, whether they use their own photos, antique prints, or both. Those decks take years to complete.

Conversely, we've all seen those bad collage decks that look like this poorly executed Mod Podge done with magazine clippings:

 

Yes! The difference is not in the tool or technique used (and I dare to say not even in the time spent on it), it is in the ability of those using the tools.
The difference, I say, is in the result, not in the process.

 

As I said, todays tools are just toys but thinking that, maybe, tomorrow I could find a tool that helps me creating the image that I have in my mind is intriguing to me.

I believe it was Michelangelo that said that sculpting was easy, he just had to see the form he wanted to get and remove the stone in excess 🙂
I wonder what would he think of Z-sculpt and other 3D modeling tools ...
 

Edited January 28, 2022 by remod

[remod]

Talking about Art, I was extremely impressed when I visited the Rodin Musem in Paris.
I didn't know that he used a large set of pre-made parts that he designed (being the artist that he was) so that they could be assembled in different ways and would seem different when looked at from different angles. If not told I wouldn't have guessed that these famous sculpture (the three shades):

 

is just the assembly of three identical statues.
And he designed a full set of hands with different gestures to be used across many works. He was using Copy & Paste well before our times! Pure genius 🙂

 

[gregory]

I am one who has created a photographic deck (I can't draw either !) and some of my cards used collage. But I had total control of what goes where, and it took me about 8 years to find the right photos and so on. I cannot see any way - with this programme - to have the kind of influence over the images that I would want. How can you decide what goes where and what bits you don't lie - there's not even an edit facility. How much power do you have over what comes out ?

 

And why does the word decide come out as decided every single time I type it

Edited January 28, 2022 by gregory

[remod]

3 minutes ago, gregory said:

How can you decide what goes where and what bits you don't lie - there's not even an edit facility. How much power do you have over what comes out ?

Not much, as I said they are toys at the moment. There are other similar tools where you have more control on the process but nothing relevant.

Sorry for having used the example of "collage", it was just meant as a way to say that you can use different tools and still achieve good (or bad) results.

About the time spent on creating cards, I can fully understand!
I started working on my I Ching cards more than 20 years ago, For me the challenge was to design them so that I could use cards to cast I Ching hexagrams. Only now that I refined the "mechanics" for the various sets (2, 3, 4, etc cards) I'm working on their graphics.

[gregory]

No - I wasn't trying to criticise, just saying that for me, I need far more control than this programme can hope to give. It's fun - but for me, that's all it is.

[katrinka]

1 hour ago, remod said:

Just came to my mind that one could play with the tool and come out with a set of images they feel comfortable with and create they own personal deck.
Wouldn't it be cool to have your own, unique, set of cards, each one reminding you of the meanings you have always associate to that card? Doing it with wombo would surely take a long time but could be interesting.

 

Maybe in ten years or so, when the technology stops dismembering people and animals, and adding nonsensical details. Until then, Im better off with a pen.
 

57 minutes ago, remod said:

If I had to say, I'm not against it.

 

I'm not against it, either, as far as making weird pictures and posting them on social media. I wouldn't use it to make a deck, though.

I don't mind calling it AI. That's what it is. It's interesting, but it's not there yet. Some of it's fun to play around with, some of it's just annoying. I have Siri or whatever they named it on this laptop. I keep it strictly turned off.

And as with all computer things, there's GIGO to consider. I wonder what the diagnosis would have been if they'd used youtube comments? 🤣

https://futurism.com/depressed-alcoholic-bots

 

1 hour ago, MuninnMissinHuginn said:

How could I forget Duchamp’s Urnal - found art!

There's more to it than that. He was making a point. (And it's called "Fountain" - make of that what you will. 😁)

It's art, but it isn't craftsmanship. If he'd carefully crafted a urinal out of bronze or intricately carved marble, there would have been no point.
But a Tarot deck should have a degree of craftsmanship. Even the crudest TdM has a lot of that. The cardmakers knew their craft, and they worked hard at it.

So it's not so simple as finding a urinal, or buying one at the hardware store.

Picasso could do great art with minimal, crude strokes. But the genius was in things like capturing images from different angles all at once, not technique. Again, art is not the same thing as craftsmanship. And wombo is not art.
Or craftsmanship.
It's a thing for bored people to play with. So is Wordle, Rubik's Cube, etc.

You don't have to be a genius like Picasso, DuChamp, Jackson Pollack, etc. to make a Tarot. It's not about great art.
It's about competent art that's crafted in such a way as to convey the meanings of whatever system it follows.
 

34 minutes ago, gregory said:

I am one who has created a photographic deck (I can't draw either !) and some of my cards used collage. But I had total control of what goes where, and it took me about 8 years to find the right photos and so on. I cannot see any way - with this programme - to have the kind of influence over the images that I would want. How can you decide what goes where and what bits you don't lie - there's not even an edit facility. How much power do you have over what comes out ?

 

Exactly this.

 

19 minutes ago, remod said:

I said they are toys at the moment

 

Well, there you go.

 

20 minutes ago, remod said:

I started working on my I Ching cards more than 20 years ago, For me the challenge was to design them so that I could use cards to cast I Ching hexagrams. Only now that I refined the "mechanics" for the various sets (2, 3, 4, etc cards) I'm working on their graphics.

 

The I Ching cards look much better. No loud magenta chunks of unidentifiable stuff, no dismembered people and animals. I'd advise refining those.


 

1 hour ago, remod said:

I feel myself even more excused since I'm not trying to do art (nor Art) but just creating "tools" to help focusing one's mind.

 

But the thing with tools is that form follows function. I'm not seeing that with these.



 

[Raggydoll]

My first thought before knowing anything about this tool, was that you perhaps didn’t feel confident in drawing humans and maybe that’s why you added so many swirls to try and make up for it. Now, of course, I know it’s the computer program who did that 😉 

 

Personally, I don’t particularly like that style. It’s too unpolished, for lack of better description. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. I can understand how fun that tool must be, and if you like the result then why not make an entire deck for yourself 🙂

 

For me, art is about vision, composition and execution. It’s like a three legged stool 😄 With programs like these, the creator have some control over the vision but the rest is literally up to chance. When viewed as a toy or game, that’s all okay. But to me, it couldn’t be anything other than that.