Category: Etteilla Tarot

The Ten of Swords. Ego-Death. Soul Wound. The Double-Cross.

On By benebellIn Etteilla Tarot, tarot, tarot card meanings, tarot symbolism31 Comments

Left or Right – Which one do you prefer? The left G-rated version that leans more into psychological pain? Or the right bloody version that leans more into the physical manifestation of our suffering?

First three left to right are representative of the TdM, RWS, and Thoth, respectively; fourth is from the DruidCraft Tarot, and fifth is from the Tarot of the Owls by Elisabeth Alba and Pamela Chen

The Ten of Swords in tarot has come to be associated with betrayal, treachery, backstabbing, the pain of being double-crossed, and the breach of trust. So how a deck creator illustrates the Ten of Swords reveals a lot about their unconscious processing of these themes.

It’s also the soul wound, a crisis of faith, where faith and reason are at war. It’s the mob mentality vs. individuality. Seeing an artist’s rendering of the Ten of Swords will reveal to you that artist’s relationship to the archetype of the ego-death.

At least that’s always been my impression.

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The Tyrant Embodied in The Chariot Card (Etteilla Tarot Key 21)

On By benebellIn cartomancy, Etteilla Tarot21 Comments

This Chariot card took me 11 months to complete. Well no that’s not a fair representation. What I mean is I started the first draft of this card almost a year ago, and then just… stalled. (Funny enough, for a Chariot card…)

It’s still not done done, but it is a complete first draft. For every single card, I think I’m done, and then a few days later, sometimes weeks later, I happen to glance at it and suddenly spot egregious problems I need to fix.

“Le Despote Africain.” Upright, the keyword is Dissension, or Discord, and in reverse, it’s Arrogance.

Grimaud’s Etteilla III associates Card 21 with Rehoboam, the legendary 10th century BCE son of King Solomon who divided the previously united Kingdom of Israel into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, and who imposed harsh policies and burdens on the people.

Kinda fun to see the two Chariot cards side by side for comparison. On the left is from my Spirit Keeper’s Tarot deck, Revelation Edition. It’s philosophically fascinating how the slightest little change makes the biggest difference.

In the SKT, the line drawing pre-color is in black, thickness 7. For the Etteilla, line drawings are done in brown or midnight blue, thickness 4 or 5. Look at the dramatic difference just that one little change makes.

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The Etteilla Five of Swords

On By benebellIn cartomancy, Etteilla Tarot, personal, tarot, tarot card meanings8 Comments

Lord have mercy that the tarot card you were drawing on your birthday isn’t an omen of what’s to come for the year. Because I was “called” to work on the Five of Swords. Or I was “pulled” to, I dunno, I find all that New Agey jargon a bit fluffy but there it is. “I was called to” just means I don’t have a logical explanation for why I did what I did.

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Trad Wives vs. Girl Bosses; Etteilla Art on the Nine and Eight of Swords

On By benebellIn Etteilla Tarot, opinion, personal16 Comments

Anyone else notice the intensity of recent conversations swirling around so-called girl bosses and trad wives?

Funny enough, as I nosily listen in on video essays, podcasts, and commentaries, I’ve been sketching the Eight and Nine of Swords from my Etteilla deck.

Now you’re like, wait what does the Eight and Nine of Swords in the tarot have to do with girl bosses and trad wives?

I thought nothing. But the illustrations I seem to have subconsciously done at this time sure are amusing.

Chronologically I worked on Card 56, the Eight of Swords first, which appears to give off girl boss energy, then moved on to Card 55, the Nine of Swords, which one might identify with trad wife.

This blog post is another installment of my Etteilla Tarot art project status updates.

At the same time I thought it’d be fun to pepper in some rambling on this whole trad wives, girl bosses conversation du jour.

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Thoughts on Machine Qi (Soul?) & Drawing The Hermit Card

On By benebellIn Etteilla Tarot, opinion, tarot community13 Comments

It’s been a while since I gave an Etteilla deck-in-progress update. I finished working on Card 18, The Hermit, oft named The Capuchin (an order of Franciscan friars) or simply titled with the keyword “Traitor.”

As I was drawing, I got to thinking about the qi in works of art, per the qi of their artists. That in turn got me thinking about the qi of AI and AI-generated images.

Just so we’re clear, no part of my art process includes AI, AI generated images, just– any of that stuff. The most high-tech we get is the capabilities of a 2004 digital painting software that has since gone defunct, so this software program no longer even exists.

But back to the point of this rumination…

If we are to believe in the principle of qi as a force imbued in all things that are sentient or created by sentient beings, then works of art have qi.

In fact, that has always been one of the fundamental factors of valuing art from a Taoist perspective — assessing the qi of the artist’s hand apparent in the art.

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Etteilla Deck-in-Progress: Card No. 16, Last Judgment

On By benebellIn Etteilla Tarot20 Comments

I started working on my reconstructed Etteilla Tarot in early 2022 and was making pretty decent progress. Then in all of 2023 I only completed the first drafts of 7 cards. That’s right. Seven. It took me an entire calendar year to complete seven cards.

Also, I stalled on the Judgement card because I just couldn’t get the composition quite right.

Left: Il Giudizio Universale (1536-1541) Michelangelo; Right: The Last Judgment (1599) Barbara van den Broeck after her father, Chrispijn van den Broeck

At first I was seeking inspiration from, like, Michelangelo and van den Broeck, with hundreds of teeny tiny people, angels, and demons in the background, lined up and down those mountain tops. But having nowhere near an iota of their talent, my drafts kept looking like a hot mess.

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Six of Swords WIP: Please halp with composition ideas…

On By benebellIn Etteilla Tarot, personal, tarot, tarot card meanings25 Comments

I’m struggling with swords placement in my Six of Swords wip. In fact, there’s a lot to this illustration composition that I’m struggling with. Maybe you’ll have some suggestions on what I can do.

I’ll start from the beginning. I knew I wanted to play with the religion and science dynamic in the Six of Swords, and my ambition was to do that in a way that isn’t too cliche.

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The Hard Slog to Continue Deck Doodling…

On By benebellIn Etteilla Tarot12 Comments

I don’t know why or how drawing the First Edition of the SKT was a dream-like experience and even the digital coloring process for the Revelation went along at good momentum and a consistent rate of progress, but then here with the Etteilla art project, it has been SO… @#$%^&… EFFING…. $#$@!!… HAAARRRRD!!!

And I can’t even articulate to you what about the process is harder.

Even though both the SKT and this Etteilla are solo indie projects, the SKT illustrations felt like channeling and downloading, whereas these Etteilla illustrations feel like I’ve been commissioned to do the work and there’s some tension, push and pull between whoever is masterminding the project and me, the commissioned illustrator.

With the SKT, anything and every element that needed to be aligned was aligned. With this Etteilla, I dunno… that’s not how it feels at all.

I use the commissioned art analogy because based on what I’ve heard from artist friends about that experience of being commissioned to create someone else’s vision, that slog is exactly how this effort feels.

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Practice Pays Off: An Etteilla Doodles Update

On By benebellIn Etteilla Tarot, personal, tarot community11 Comments
Left: RWS-based Key 13 Death card drawing, entirely by hand pen and ink sketch. Right: Etteilla-based Card 17 Death card drawing, mostly digital, including hand-drawing with a digital paintbrush.

The above side by side isn’t a fair comparison, but let’s compare anyway. The left was entirely hand-drawn in pen and ink back in 2018 when I first picked up drawing after not having done anything artsy for over 20 years. Well, I did do technical drawings in fashion design, but like creative artsy art. That I hadn’t done in decades.

The above right began as a thumbnail sketch by hand (I still feel better doing it that way, even after going digital), I scan in the rough sketch and then clean it up digitally. Then the illustration is colored digitally as well.

Gradually, I’m doing less and less by hand analog and more and more digitally in software. For example, even near the tail end of completing SKT Revelation art, I was finalizing almost the entire composition of each card by hand, scanning it in, and then digitally coloring, tweaking, etc.

At this point of the Etteilla project, however, there’s less than 1 hour of drawing by hand analog before everything goes digital and I take it to the finish line in Paint Shop Pro.

I will say, though, notwithstanding the boost you get from tech, my actual line drawing by hand has improved a great deal over the last 5 years. Almost every day for the last 5 years, but for a few exceptions, I’ve been practicing my drawing skills. I keep a sketchbook and make sure I draw something every day.

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Trying to Resume the Etteilla Doodles

On By benebellIn Etteilla Tarot7 Comments

I’ve been trying to summon the motivation to resume my reconstructed Etteilla Tarot project. Funny… the card I resume on is the Four of Swords, which perfectly captures how I’ve been feeling.

Here are varying drafts of my illustration for the Etteilla Four of Swords. My art process begins with sketches by hand that I then scan in, clean up, and digitally color. I also separate out each feature in the composition as its own layer, so I can move around the pieces, resize, etc.

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