Make your own Tarot Cards!
Whether you're a beginner learning to read the Tarot or an established Tarot reader with many years experience, if you make your own
Tarot Cards
, you take your relationship with Tarot to a new level. It doesn't matter your art experience, the important thing is to take the time to create a Tarot deck that you love and connect with.
Making your own Tarot deck helps reinforce the commitment you have to learning Tarot as well as giving you an artistic outlet that is
spritiual and fun
. Creating a unique Tarot deck is a special experience that can be as easy or as complicated as you wish. How do you get started? Read on!
- Decide your direction! One of the first -and most necessary- things to do is to determine the look you want your deck to have. What design periods appeal to you? What colour palettes excite or soothe you? What look what really inspire you when reading Tarot?
A great way of giving you visual reinforcement is to create a tear sheet. Basically, you'll start looking for pictures and images, Tarot and not, that you love. When you find something that strikes a chord with you, print or copy it and paste it onto a piece of cardboard or into ascrapbook . The object is to get as many visual references as possible to find the theme that works for you.
Don't be afraid to look at existing Tarot decks for inspiration. If you find a deck you love, what about it appeals to you? Try and be as specific as possible with the elements you like - it'll make your life easier when you start to create your own deck.
- Pick Your Passion! Once you have a good selection of visual images on-hand for reference, decide how you want to create your deck. For the simplest option, you can always download a blank deck and hand colour and decorate them yourself. For those who feel like they're at a disadvantage in terms of time or artistic ability, this is a nice compromise. You're not limited to just colour either. Collage and images can be added to the card templates either with a computer or by hand to still allow for a high level of
For those that what to take their experimentation up a notch, identify where you're most talented or what skill you'd like to learn. Try to be realistic with your expectations in terms of time and quality. If you're flexing new creative muscles, it will take you considerably longer than if you're working with something you know. Some suggestions for mediums to try would be collage (digital or traditional), photography, painting -watercolour, oil, or acrylic, etching, sculpture, quilting,
Japanese paper
, pen and ink, encaustic, wood cut or other printing, mosaic. Bear in mind too that the amount of detail you want to capture will affect the size of the finished piece.
Whatever you decide to work in, make sure to have fun with it.
- Divide your workload Recreating an entire Tarot deck is a large project with big time commitments. To keep your momentum up and to stay focussed, why not divide it into sections. Look at the Major Arcana and each of the suits as little mini-projects to make the deck seem less daunting.
To keep your project on track, create realistic timeframes to work by and for those that are super organized, plot it on your calendar. Remember to balance wanting make your own Tarot deck and enjoying the process: you want to finish loving your own deck, not resenting it.
- Tying up the loose ends When the artistic process is complete, what else needs to happen to make your own
Tarot deck ? It depends on you. Making a usable deck can be as low-tech as printing off finished images from your computer, gluing them to card stock and laminating them to having dies made and having them commercially printed in a small run (if you wanted to sell them as a limited edition set).
The choice is up to you-and your budget. If you plan on printing them yourself, I would investigate laminating or coating the finished images. Otherwise, with any regular use, the images you worked so hard to create will be very dirty and possibly smeared. Also, prints from an ink jet printer is not stable with moisture. Too much humidity or sweaty palms could ruin your images. Why make your own Tarot cards if you don't spend a little more time
If you make your own Tarot cards, you have an incredible opportunity to heighten your relationship with Tarot as well as express yourself. If the whole deck seems a little daunting, why not start by making your own version of the Major Arcana? If you can make your own Tarot cards, you have the chance to take what you've learned from the Tarot and create something beautiful and meaningful. By making your own
Tarot cards
, you have a chance to make the Tarot your own. Enjoy!
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