Still Knotted

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....

La Isla Bonita

I've just returned from a forthnight on La Palma, the greenest of the Canary islands. La Palma in the spring is a work of art created in abundant exotic flowers and lush green, contrasted by rugged cliffs, secluded black beaches and desolate vulcanic landscapes. A perfect little paradise for naturelovers. Living in the modern world, it can be so easy to overlook the overwhelming beauty of the natural world, but standing on the edge of a steep cliff above the clouds or walking underneeth a skyhigh canopy of dripping ferns it is simply impossible not to be in awe.

The female vessel

The picture shows the Phoenician goddess Astarte as pot mother. She is hollow and when filled pours the liquid from her breasts into the vase in her lap. A perfect and ancient example of the queen of cups' archetype, created ages before the tarot was thought out and female nipples became taboo.
The woman is the vessel that carries life. With the invention of pottery in the neolithic, pots and vases became symbols of storage and as such represented the female and her womb. The queen of cups represents this life carrying aspect of the female energies and I feel I should picture her like her prehistoric counterpart; As a vessel, carrying and pouring.

A new queen emerges

I guess I just couldn't leave the tarot alone for long. As I started sketching with an Ondine theme in mind, the queen of cups emerged. Queen of water, nursing and the mysteries of emotional depth. For her painting I'm thinking blue... lots of blue.

Knotted

To wrap yourself around a lover, or to be wrapped in a lovers embrace is to melt into each other, to dissolve bounderies and to become the cosmos.
Anyone who's love has been returned will understand the feeling of oneness. But to capture this cosmic knot in paint is a challenge way beyond me. For some reason I like to frustrate myself with the impossible. With this work in progress I need to close my eyes and let my heart see.

The virtue of 2008

2007 was my chariot year, a year that transformed me from student to professional. I decided to pull a card to see where the wild ride of the chariot has left me and how I will be experiencing 2008. The 3 of wands tells me I will continue to explore the new and expand my horizons, but also that I need to take the long view and plan ahead while I'm standing on firm soil. And maybe I will finally be able to build up confidence based on positive experiences. I've made it this far, is there really any reason to doubt my virtues?

To touch a golden globe

It's been a while and a lot has happened since. I've graduated and have entered a new fase in life as a small animal vet. It was not a smooth transition and besides reinventing myself, I didn't have the energy left to create. I did experiment with finger-painting and it felt very authentic, mystical and direct. Like creating my own prehystoric art. The most intens experience was painting on a spherical lamp. Letting my hands glide over the smooth surface, my fingers seemed to work without my intervention. The result was some sort of oneiric surreal mess, but the process was very liberating.

The minotaurus will never be finished btw, not only have I found a way out of the labyrinth, my cat found his way onto the painting... He fell asleep on top of it and left thousends of hairs in the paint.

Creeping in the dark

Several paintings are awaiting completion and I've just started with a new one as well again. It represents the minotaurus in his underground labyrinth. I'm not sure what to think of him; Though in this image I've portrayed him as a dark monster, the bull-cult from crete, which inspired the myth, did not worship such a demon from the netherworld. One day I will devote a painting to the worship of the bull that lies at the birth of religion, for now this is just a fun image to create and it represents myself as I wander around in the labyrinth of choices. I am looking for a direction in my artwork that represents me personally, that radiates a hint of the unique but with every painting I feel more lost. The answer is somewhere in my artwork, but at the moment I just can not see it.

Medium..

Well, the slight abstract lines of the sketch have disappeared. I'm not sure why the image slowly drifts towards more realism, maybe I'm just too gut-less to produce more abstract artwork.
While working on this painting I discovered something important... when I was given my first tubes of watersoluble oilpaint, I thought I just needed water to dilute the paint. After three years, I finally learned about medium.....

Oil pastels

Now that I have time on my hands, I need to use it. Apart from doodling in class, I've never sketched much and I really felt I needed to do that more to practice form and shape. I've tried colour pencils and regular pencils, but they always made me feel clumsy. The discovery of oil pastels was a wonderful surprise! The colour is intense, can be mixed much like paint and I just love how it forces you to be expressive. It makes me feel like a child again, just enjoying the pretty colours.

Paint the sketch

To my frustration, my original sketches are often more expressive than the finished painting. That might be because I've always seen my sketches as something completely different from my paintings. Sketches are just fast, rough and unguided thoughts on paper I thought, and I only used their composition and subject in the resulting painting. So time for yet another experiment: Paint the sketch and try to keep the impression of the sketch alive.

no more ten of cups

I'm still on a creative quest. I feel I just need to try out lots of different things. The concept from my next painting comes from the 10 of cups, but releasing the tarot referance gives me a lot more freedom to experiment. I want to capture the magical feeling of one-ness, of dissolving in love and eachother. It will be a long time before this painting is finished, but I will take my time and see where the image leads me.

No more fear

It'a amazing how productive I am since I abandoned my tarot project... The freedom I thought so scary actually allows me to create without fear. Sharing the production process of my tarot cards online might have reinforced my fear to fail, to disappoint not just myself. Nobody is watching over my shoulder now, there are no expectations and all that emerges is a surprise.
My next painting will be of Leda, raped by Zeus disguised as a swan.

I'm not here

I just took a canvas and started painting. What came out was me, and my fear to face reality and to start a new fase in life. I've graduated as a vet, something I've wanted since I was a very little girl. But now I feel there is more I want, more aspects of myself that I want to explore. Instead of focussing on finding a job as a veterinarian, I applied for a new study in ancient history.

Is this it?

I've tweaked her face a bit, only to unexpectantly recognise myself in the image. I did not plan that and the slight resemblance might not last till the end. Speaking of the end; when is a painting finished? I am quite satisfied the way it looks now, but there are still things that I can do that might improve (or ruin...) the painting.

Multitasking

I have never been very good at focussing at just one thing for longer periods. Specially with artwork. I also like to take my time with a piece, advancing very slowly with just a few streaks a week or less. So it is also more efficient to be working on more than one painting.
Yesterday I got the urge to do "something" with gold and white. I remember seeing a certain pose a while back that intrigued me, so I decided to use that pose as well. This image is the result of that urge and I wonder where it will take me.

Tarot Sabatical

Sadly, I have decided to stop working on my tarot deck. I want to explore my creativity beyond the scope of tarot. Painting tarot cards has been a wonderfull learning experience but I feel the set format is hindering my artistic development somewhat.
Tarot and its archetypes are an important part of my referance frame and I think a hint of tarot will remain visible in everything I create but I do not longer wish to create set cards and meanings. I have lots of ideas for paintings and I can't wait to try them out.
I think that eventually I will return to painting tarot, or maybe start a new project in a different medium. It is not unthinkable either, that my non-tarot work will be a perfect match to a certain card.
This is what I am working on at the moment. No pre-study, no set idea, just me the canvas and the paint. Each layer reveals a new direction and the destination is very much a mystery.

Birth of a page

I still haven't found courage nor vision to finish my devil. I'm sure I will one day, but I decided to start on another card in the meantime. It's not a conscious move to frame the darkness of the devil between the purity of the star and the innocence of the page of cups but it seems logical.
The minors are a different challenge than the majors. The imagery is less about ancient and abstract archetypes and much more about personality and the actual moment.

Tarot lovers Calendar 2008

I've decided to enter in the competition to design the cover for the Tarot lover's calendar of 2008. I wish I had the time to create something new and original, but I simply don't.
Unless a miracle happens over the weekend, this will be my entry this year.

One last leap of faith?

The Star and the Devil alternate on my easel. Between them lies the liberating destruction of the Tower, and what a tower it must be to counteract the dark demon and free the golden beauty of hope. One day I will need to pour that image out of me and I fear the power that will be unleashed in me then.
The Star is almost finished. There are minor things that need tweaking and I still need to solve the issue of digitising metallic paint. There is one major addition I am contemplating. I intended to have water drip from her hair back into the see, to emphasize that the lady is the vessel of hope herself. But I fear I will ruin the image in the process as I have no idea how to pull it off convincingly. What to do...

The devil's poison

Painting a devil is not an easy task, at least not when you have delved it up from the depths of your self. As she watches me from the easel I can feel the lure of temptation, denial and self gratification. She makes me feel bad about myself, very bad and I feel the need to purge myself from all this lusting and wanting. I can not wait to finish her, face her and than store my demon again. There is a lot of pleasure to be had in the devils realm, but in the end it will poison your mind.

Godless nature

As my devil slowly emerges from the snake pile, it strikes me that painting tarot is one of my personal demons. It demands me totally and it keeps me from working on less creative and spiritual tasks. Painting and creating seem simple mundane needs that life is filled with, but they also serve a higher purpose. Creating has put me in touch with my spiritual side again without the need to toss aside the freedom of atheism. There is no god, only nature. And nature has evolved into creative minds like mine, capable of expressing personal themes and myths without the need to believe that they exist outside the human consciousness.

A bad hair-day

While I am still struggling with the golden hair of the Star-lady, I've roughly sketched the Devil. The hair of the devil went al serpenty on me, the same serpents as the one controlled by the gentle hands of the Strength card. With the Devil, the beast is out of control, slidering and hissing all around the tempting dark she-male.
With all this hair surrounding me in my current work, I think my tarot is trying to tell me that I need a haircut. Desperately...

The Fool and the Devil

I had a setback with the Star today, it might take me even longer to finish her... I just can't get her hair right. The frustration of a work in progress always seems to be good source of inspiration however.
Last time I attempted the Devil, she forced herself upon me through the Fool. I couldn't capture the purity of the Fool without purging myself of the Devil first, but in the end I lost track of both. Now that I finally feel ready to finish that Devil, the Fool pops into mind again as well. What is it with that pair? The pure soul of the Fool seems connected to the magical materialism of the all too human Devil, but how exactly? The Devil doesn't care at all for the simplicity of the Fool and the Fool doesn't suffer from the constrictions of desire. There are many opposites within the arcana of the tarot and the Devil and the Fool seem to be just another pair. There is a lesson hidden between them that will probably not reveal itself before both of them are captured in paint.

Darkness stirs

While I am still working on the star, slowly and carefully layering her towards completion, my mind wanders
off into less serene pastures; The devil is rearing her ugly head again. Last time I made an attempt at creating my devil, I couldn't see it through till the end. The image got out of control and I couldn't see it as part of me anymore. I will start all over after the star is finished but I think I will roughly stick to the initial composition. I wonder how far I can take my devil in terms of shock and confrontation while keeping her attractive and recognizable. Time will tell.

The glimmer of hope

I've finally managed to capture the effect of the gold and silver paint. Alas this totally obscures the vibrant blue of the night sky. Maybe I've made a mistake in picking the gold and silver, maybe my painting will not be digitized properly. I truly hope this painting lesson is not that harsh, and with the star how could it be? As long as there is beauty, there is still hope.

To not abandon hope

I was about to throw the star out and either start a new. or start painting on another card. I felt that with the adding of detail, a lot of feeling was lost. I am not comfortable with abandoning the card of hope without a fight however, so I will keep painting until it is ruined or finished. Hopefully I can reclaim some of its potential. At least at the moment she doesn't look like she has been laying in the cold water too long anymore.
I think I will end up painting several versions of most cards, doomed to never finish a complete deck. Not only does my painting style and technique develop, my relationship with the cards is also a dynamic one and it seems impossible to capture every aspect in a single image.

Universal Fantasy

I decided to buy a new tarot deck to re start reading with. I've browsed the list of available decks countless times in the past, but buying a new deck remains a delicate and exciting mission for me, which often results in an impuls purchase. This time I wasn't looking for "The one perfect deck", I just wanted a deck to give me clear and straight readings, a personal deck, just for me.
At the store the image on the universal fantasy's box just shouted out at me as I recognised myself in the pale red-haired lady of the two of swords. While I do not care for the fantasy theme, the fancy outfits and strange beasts, the atmosphere of this deck is perfect. It has a quality about it that makes you see through the fantasy and just "feel" the cards meanings. Unlike some impuls parchases from the past, this is actually a good one. The deck suits me and my needs at this point in time and I hope to learn a lot from it.

Creative Struggle

It's been a while now since I've added the last streaks on the star. It's not just because of the graveyard shifts I have been working, I am stuck. Stuck with this image but also stuck on a direction for my artwork. I feel I need to develop more, I just do not know in which direction. I drift between impressionist, realism and some hints of the abstract, but haven't found a way to balance and blend those styles into strong artwork. I've started doubting if I am an artist, if my work is good enough, if it has potential at all. So, for the first in a long time, I decided to do a reading.
I broke out my trusted old friend the Haindl to see if it would still speak to me after all this time. I was surprised to see that it did. It spoke to me on a deep, spiritual and abstract level. Only clearing away the fog so I could see better what I allready knew.
I've learned a long time ago that tarot can give you advise, but never the easy route that you desire. I struggle (5 of wands) too much at the moment because I want desperately to balance (Justice) and temper (Alchemy) my styles while they are still developing. I need to stop analysing (4 of swords), stop trying and start following nothing but my intuition (Fool) . I know where I want to end up with my style (ace of swords), but the journey cannot be forced.

In the dark

I believe I have entered the darkest zone of this painting. The preliminary stage is complete, from here on I can add depth and detail and focus on the essence and feeling once more.
It's hard to capture the silver and gold paint on film so I will need something else to make this card sparkle and shine with renewal and hope. I am so curious to see how this one will develop, but I allready like it much better than the previous star.

The painting in the drawing

The real work on the star has begun. It is one thing to come up with an image to capture a concept, an other to transform a drawing into a painting. I still think as a drawer and not as a painter, in lines and composition rather than strokes of color. To find the painting that is hidden in the drawing is a painful process of various degrees of ugliness. I just have to keep painting, layer after layer until I finally see it; the hidden painting. There is beauty hidden in the image somewhere and I need to dig deep to uncover it. Like the beauty of the Star that can only be truly appreciated after the horror of the Tower.

Renewal of the Star

To make up my mind about which card to paint next, I started sketching. And the image that came out most clear was that of the new star. I found it hard to relate to my previous star, to loose myself in the image. And I was always disappointed at how the night sky turned out. There is nothing there to look up to in awe.
Inspired by the starlike aureole of hair in the Ad Astra image and the woman washing her hair on Haindl's star card, I will create a new image of renewal. A beautifull woman emerges from the dark and cold water, throwing her hair back and looking up at the twinkling stars. After having been submerged in darkness, the sight of beauty is a sign of hope, the sight of sparkling stars a sign that the darkest hours are past.

Enter or Emerge

Having barely finished the queen of swords I am eager to start on a new card. The painting Ad Astra inspired me to redo my previous version of the star in a style more in tune with my other cards. There is a lot that I am pleased about in that old image, but also some that I regret. As much as I would hate to redo cards instead of expanding the deck, I do think in some cases it will serve the deck best if I do. With the new image for the star I hope to better capture the feeling of renewal, of emerging from the night sea to finally take a deep breath of fresh air.
The star is not the only watery image that I'm thinking of painting next. Before you can emerge from the waters of the soul, you must enter them. Entering the water is signified by the page of cups. With her innocence she barely touches the surface of the water, unaware of what lies hidden in the depths.
So which will be next? The innocent entering of the waters of the soul, or the matured emerging form the night sea?

Queen of swords

Ad Astra

I went to the museum yesterday to visit an exposition on the Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela. What struck me most was the variety of styles he was capable of and the seamless blend of naturalism and surealism. If I could only learn to paint figures and faces like him, to capture an expression so perfectly and so natural... While gazing upon the ascending girl with flowing hair like a star, perfectly positioned between the abstract material world and the gold disc of the devine, I could only sigh in awe.

To paint tarot

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.
As I paint more I can see my style changing, the artwork matures slowly as I do. I thought at the beginning of this project that I allready had a personal style. Now I am starting to think that style was more a lack of experience. When I compare older work to what I create at the moment it is like comparing early stages of a painting with the end result. Somethings that I loved are lost and something new has appeared. If my style keeps changing with experience, this deck will never be truely coherent and I will continue to feel the urge to start over. Tarot seems to be an endless source of inspiration, and one that does not easily release its grip on those that have tasted its riches.

New start on the web

This is an attempt to re-start my online journaling activities. I have lost connection to my previous journal www.tarotjournal.com and untill I can reclaim that I shall continue here.