Temperlyne’s Tarot is not a prolific blog. You won’t find daily or even weekly posts there. What you will find is an amazingly insightful look into the journey an artist undertakes to create a Tarot deck.
When you stop to consider it, seventy-eight cards is a huge undertaking. I am no painter–nor am I even an artist of any type in the area of drawing, etc. So I have no concept of how long it takes to create art of this type (or any type), but I am fairly certain they don’t just slap paint up on canvas. (ducking all the artists out there who are now willing to slap paint on ME–HA!)
Temperlyne agonizes over her (his?) work. Here is one comment:
This painting evolves at an excruciatingly slow pace and I wonder if I will ever finish it. Why I am showing it today is because I finally have access to a decent camera that shows the original colours much better.
Maybe I should just leave it as raw as it is now, I usually tend to ruin any potential by refining it too much….
Just that brief peek into the artist’s thought process is amazing to me. I really love this blog and even though posts are few and far between, I stay subscribed so I don’t miss them when this blog is updated. I really enjoyed the posts that showed the birth and progress of the Star card.
Or this post where Temperlyne agonizes over her process.
Sometimes I wonder if other tarot artists also spend hours, days and weeks working on a single image. It usually takes me months to contemplate on the meaning and concept of a card, but the actual painting consumes lots of time and energy as well. Had I opted for an other medium it might not have been so time consuming, but oils give me the abillity to feel the strokes, gently touch the image and caress the persons in it. Most streaks of paint are created unconciously, but still they enforce the strong connection between myself and the image. Painting achetypes is a very personal and confronting experience. I get to lock eyes with the images that spring from my soul.
Maybe it is the writer in me that so thrives on this type of blog. Do you find it enjoyable as well or do you just want the finished product in your hand? Visit Temperlyne’s Tarot and tell me what you think, won’t you?