This interview aims to help everyone in the Tarot community understand a self-published artist's creative vision and mindset. Making an informed decision when purchasing beautiful tarot and oracle decks starts with knowing what certain cards mean to the creator. Moreover, other talented independent artists can learn about the overall creation process and enhance their creativity.
Hi Annie,
Thank you so much for participating in this interview with Tarot Stack for self-published Tarot artists. Eve and I received the Dreamy Moons Tarot deck and wanted to know how you came up with such a masterpiece.
- What was your process for creating the lovely gold details and adding the splash of bright colors on each card?
Black and gold have been my brand colors for quite some time now, but after 6 years of DreamyMoons it felt natural for the style and colors to evolve. I wanted to add more life and color to the cards, as color holds a lot of meaning as well as being more pleasing to the eye.
I first sketched the cards on paper, simply following my imagination after I learned about the significance and meaning of a specific card. I then worked with those sketches digitally and combined with colorful watercolors. Gold foil details were created in a separate layer to later be added by my printers.
- Would you mind telling us what specific cards mean to you? – The Self and Page of Cups.
The Self is my personal addition to the deck, for it doesn’t exist in the traditional Tarot. To make my deck 80 cards instead of 78, I created the Self card and The Flower Of Life. To me, these two cards complete the deck. They are polar opposites of each other - The Self is all about your ego, genetics, ancestry, memories, experiences, everything that makes you up as a person. The Flower of Life is, on the other hand, about detaching from all that makes you, you. It’s about the Universe as a whole.
If my imagination was a card, it would be the Page of Cups. She is a dreamer, floating somewhere between a dream and reality. I relate a lot to her personally as that is exactly how I feel when I am in the process of creation.
- The artwork includes diverse characters, which we love. While creating these characters, what challenges did you face?
I can’t really say I faced any challenges in creation. Sometimes I wouldn’t draw the character’s pose quite right and would start over again. But it didn’t exactly feel challenging, more like just a natural process of creation that I am so used to these days.
- Each card is a work of art, containing so many details that it takes a few minutes to absorb them all. Did you ever feel like you were missing details or there were too many? How did you deal with it if you did?
In terms of details and the characters in the cards, I took a lot of inspiration from the traditional Rider Waite Tarot, whilst adding some of my own symbolism. I carefully researched each card before creating my own version, to make sure I didn’t miss any significant details that would affect its meaning. It was a very intuitive process, it took me a split second to envision how I wanted my own version of the card to look like. Out of 80 cards, I would say only 3 or 4 differ from my first, original vision. I trusted my intuition and imagination, as it has never failed me in the past!
With Love,
Annie x
