Hi cel,

What can I say other than Beautiful Painting! The only nit pick that I can notice is that a part of your text seems to get lost a little with the background.

Again, Beautiful though!

~ Joe Ayotte

Cel, I missed you!
and wow - that is nothing short then amazing. The soft colors the expression..absolutely beautiful.

Did you have a reference for the face? it's very lovely

Soft colours !!! i love it

Well, this must be Uma Thurman, painted over. Or did you do it from skratch? Doesn't really matter, it's brilliant anyway.

I thought she has the Julianne Moore's facial figures

Very nice colour scheme. Looks very angelic and pure... and the bubbles are a nice touch for the theme!

-dribbles and drools-

...

-Speachless-

So soft & pretty.+8

A lot of people seem to be doing tarot cards recently. Not sure why.
Great work.

It looks like a portrait, shows skill and care, might be a photo paintover but might as well be not...

But what in it makes it Tarot other than the text? You could have just written the word "Temperance" without any image at this level. Tarot is about archetypes and symbols; just any random imagery cannot be used if you want other people to ever use your deck.

Love the overall feel of this.
Wonderful!

Actually Eugene, there are thousands of published decks out there with all sorts of imagery, from the literal with symbolic images to those that are more diffuse. You had a snippy C/C on The Heirophant card I posted at the beginning of the year beacuse you thought that the card should not be represented by a woman lol.

Take a look at a something other than Rider-Waite. The imagery for Temperance has personal meaning and if you know the card's position and it's traditional tarot meaning (and not just interpretations of Rider-Waite) then it makes perfect sense.

You make me want to go start a very big, gray painting.

The colortones and textures are beautiful and sensitive. And the character is lovely indeed.

Your work is as amazing as ever. I love the way her shirt seems to freeze half way up.

Big gray painting? You read my thoughts, that's what I am contemplating myself at the moment.

However, the idea is not about doing a replica of Waite-Smith, no. I am pretty familiar with all the multitude of decks out there. They can be chiefly divided into three categories.

The first is comprised by Waite deck replicas. Waite deck is mainly about allegories and symbols, not emotional imagery. It's one school of Tarot, if you will: expresing the archetype / situation with symbolic sets. The actual emotional response to the art may vary, but at least you always get the more or less standard set of symbols to anchor at. Often these decks are missing the point by focusing on superficial things, but mostly they do provide a standard set.

The second is personal interpretations. These do not rely on symbols as much as on artistic devices, which means that they can be very powerful but usually work mostly for their creator. Others may or may not find them emotionally resonant, depending on personal differences... I believe that your deck falls in this category, and it means that your goal should be expressing the archetypes freely, but clearly. If you use a highly obscure interpretation, the meaning will be lost on most people. Reach out. Give some clear anchors, not necessarily classical ones. But you can't escape some crucial points, like masculine and feminine direction of certain cards - no offense.

(The third group, just for sake of completeness, is rubbish, whimsical stuff based on some idea - like marrying Tarot to baseball or sticking a unicorn on every card; these can be pretty as art, but highly useless as a deck. )

nice job in eyes but the neck is strange

I like the color scheme and composition. Not too much the spheres. Good work!

I like the light effect on her face, lips and eye is very done well, and your shading is very good.....Nice work

Very nice painting of her face. However, the rest of the body looks flat.

Amazing soft colours and painting

You've captured the Tarot Card Temperance really well, well done.