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My FMP will be focused on creating at least one tarot card inspired by my love for monsters and creepy things in general.
In these two weeks I wanted to focus on research. The first week was focused on Tarot cards: history, how they are used now, different tarot cards decks and where to start creating a deck. In the second week the research will focus on monsters, variating from Crypt TV and similar channels, creepypastas and other artist/media that came up during my investigations.
I gave myself two days to gather as much knowledge as I could, while I spent the rest of the week working through it. I mistakenly begun to do my research like I do for an essay: gather as much written essays, thesis or articles about the topic and try to read everything. This was an impractical way of working: because I do not have the time to only focus on research like I do while writing an essay. This led me to swich my way of researching to the one I used previously in the year: videos on YouTube would be the base of my knowledge. I looked into several documentaries, talks and people unpacking or showing decks. I learned a lot, especially about how people do not interpret the history and cards the same way, and most conflict with each other. With this in mind, the most helpful videos I found was:
Collin Low’s video, entitled: A history of The Tarot. This video is packed with the most matter of fact explanation of the history and modern usage of the cards. Listening through this video I learned about the evolution of the cards and how older decks still inspire the new ones and their symbolism. In this video I gathered that modern tarot cards are usually inspired by three decks: The Waite Smith deck, which focuses a lot more on the Fool’s metaphoric voyage through the major arcana, and the minor arcana is decorated as the major, mostly based on Egyptian symbolism. The Thoth deck, which embodies the complicated beliefs of the Golden Down occult club, that variates from the Hebrew to Egyptian symbolisms and the Decks that retain the old Italian cards imaginary for the minor arcana. Another video that helps to support this one is Gaia’s, entitled: The Little Known History of Tarot, which is a more concise version of the first video, which brings forward the notion that a deck is chosen if the cards inspire the buyer.
Focusing on sharing the unpacking/showing their collections of decks, I find the most helpful would be the playlist created by Daily Tarot Girl. With a broad look into what tarots she owns, and some understanding of her preference and what she uses tarots for. I have a better understanding of how tarots can be designed, and what particular things I need to keep in mind, such as: changing names of the cards can make the deck far harder to read for new readers, bigger cards can contain a lot more details although are harder to keep in your hands, confirmed the three types that I explained before are usually used as base for most of the tarots she owns. It was nice to see that I do not have to stick to a proper creative formula to create the cards.
I found a man in Italy that still makes hand painted tarot cards in Milan through the video by Big Great Story, entitled The Handmade Art of Tarot Cards, where I discovered that he is one of the few people still making them by hand, and that he usually starts creating a deck with Death, The Star and The Moon cards. With this in mind, I decided to focus on the Death card, based on the Waite Smith deck as I am fascinated by the fool’s journey, this is mostly based on my love of stories and the fact that the Golden Down and in consequences the Thoth deck references to mysticism is a lot more complex and I will not be able to pull it off in the time given. I also need to add, that the deck I currently use is based on Waite Smith deck.
The Death Card:
Following the discovery that I wanted to create this card first, I begun to look into the deck I owned for the meaning of the Death card with the explanation given by Higher Source Tarot for the Waite Smith’s deck in the video entitled Tarot card explained – learn all 78 cards of the Rider Waite deck on the Fool’s Journey ❤ because she makes the cards clear and easy to understand.
The deck I own is made by: …. And was my first real introduction to Tarot cards.
Higher Source Tarot raised the point that the constellation for the Death card is Scorpius which led me to visit Labyrinthos’ website to get a better understanding of the sign, the following image is of the notes I took for that part of symbolism.
The second week, as planned, I fully embarked in looking at monsters.
The first thing I did was to follow my classmate suggestion to look into Crypt TV for inspiration. I looked into the following: Kinderfanger, Water’s Edge, The Birch, Troubled Youth Stalking Sheep and Nobody’s Sheep, The Thing in the apartment. The last one scared me a lot more than the others, congrats to the creators! I followed that research with Sweet Home, I discovered the webtoon not too long ago, and I am currently reading it, although I cannot share images from it as it is illegal as stated by the creators, luckily Netflix created an adaptation, so I began to screenshot the monsters there. While doing so, I found the amazing opening, which is truly inspiring as my favourite mediums currently is watercolours and pens.
Separated from the above research I begun to listen to more creepypastas, usually the ones narrated by CreepyPastas Jr (I listened to: There is something in the rain, I am a Firewatcher and I found Something Unsettling) and The Dark Sumnium (I listened to: The Deepest Part of The Ocean Is Not Empty).
I have also been looking into my collection of books, which brought forward a few artists, such as Tim Burton, Emma Sancartier and Gris Grymly, which will help me to discover and move forward my style to be creepier. There is also Junji Ito, a horror manga artist that is famously known for his shiver inducing art style and horror tales.
A decision I made was to collect my past monster/creepy illustrations and collect them all as some sort of primary research/mind map of styles I currently own to move forward for the illustrations.
This are the notes I took from the interview I made with my sibling:
Next week:
I am going to start experimenting with styles that would interpret the death card.
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