So I’m working on painting my own Tarot deck, and while I had tried using various other media (colored pencil, watercolor markers), what I’ve come to settle on is pen and ink and watercolor. I have been wanting to learn watercolor for many years but just always felt that “only people with REAL talent can do watercolor.” (I don’t consider myself talented per se, just a hardworking student.)

But once I tried it, I found it actually pretty intuitive and the results were awesome, even before I had good supplies. I’m thrilled so far and just…really happy to be painting. I feel like “this is my medium!”, like I’ve found something that was always meant to be part of my artistic practice but I had just never tried it.

I did all the pen-and-ink outlines on Canson XL watercolor paper, before I knew better. >_<; The more I'm learning (YouTube, Skillshare, etc), the more I realize I REALLY should have invested in real paper from day 1 - if only because glazing/layering is really important (well duh) and between the paper and my habit of erasing on it, I don't have that option anymore. Most of these, between the inherent characteristics of the paper and my erasing, have had the surface messed up enough that I can't layer a new layer on top without losing any details painted below. Really frustrating. However, I do intend to keep pushing forward, and my next deck of cards/illustrations (an oracle deck) will be on Arches. Promise. Here, without further ado, are the first 3 paintings in the series, and the info on them: Paints: Mijello Mission Gold and M Graham Artist's Watercolors. Paper: Canson XL Cold Pressed 140lb Watercolor Paper Size: 9 x 12 inches Reference: Imagination Comments on the 8 of Wands: This is the first one I painted in, though not the first one I inked. In keeping with the synchronistic/random spirit of Tarot, I am choosing "which one do I paint next" by drawing a card at random from another deck and painting the corresponding one in my deck. The actual painted one has a slightly darker sky, but I chose to lighten it slightly in Photoshop so that the birds overhead would stand out more. Comments on the 9 of Pentacles: This one took a good 8 hours which is a lot for me! I wanted each of the characters to be unique, without taking away from the focus on the central figure. So I had to play with skin tones and details a lot. Comments on the World: Presented in two versions, the actual painting and the final (edited in Photoshop) image. The only thing I really changed, though, was to lighten the clouds. I feel I totally overdid the contrast on those clouds, and as I'm working on VERY cheap paper, I wasn't able to go over with any kind of glaze over them without losing the crisp details. Fortunately, this is an illustration project, rather than generating 79 saleable paintings, so I was able to edit it a bit. Other than that, though, I feel good about this one. All in all I'm really excited about continuing this project. I know I posted about it ages ago but I feel like I've narrowed down the materials I'll be using, and all the inking is done so it's time to just get to work! Thanks for looking. Any tips on dealing with this paper (other than "just redraw everything on Arches" because I CANNOT) would be very welcome, as would any other constructive tips. Obviously, as an illustrator I want this project to go well, so your suggestions may help it to do better in the end! ~Julian