I started it in October of 2006. I think I’d intended for it to take 2 years and it ended up being just over 3. The kings took the longest, probably because they were last and I wanted to make sure I got them right. I think I did.

The whole deck is now up in the galleries on phantomwise.com. It looks like a journey, which is probably exactly what it should look like.

Other than tarot finishing everything around here is holiday preparation and revision notes and hungry kittens. I have Beautiful Creatures waiting to be read and I should probably bake cookies at some point. The end of 2009 is shaping up to be quiet and dark and cold, in a cozy sort of way.

It’s messy.

But when I was working on the bastet postcard (already sold!) yesterday, I realized my art process is just as messy, particularly toward the end stages.

This is a picture of my workbench, taken right after I finished:

There are several things in this photo that I didn’t even end up using (the gold metallic worked better than the copper, for example) and yes that’s my hand covered in Mod Podge. There was an incident. I promise my camera hand was clean. Comparatively.

So I thought, looking at this mess, why should I expect my writing process to be different? Just because it’s words and not paint doesn’t mean the process is all that different, I make writing/painting analogies all the time. Of course my writing process is going to involve weird notes and seemingly disorganized bits and pieces. Clearly, I am the type of artist that needs to put paint I’m not going to use on the table and get my hands dirty.

I used to have this complex about working messy with my art. I thought all the paint should actually end up on the painting and not on the table, on me, occasionally on the cats. I got over that somewhere around the time I started splattering things. It’s difficult to splatter things and keep paint properly contained. But I liked the finished product, I liked the way it looked and it’s become something of a signature technique now.

Time to apply the same train of thought to writing, methinks. At least writing messily doesn’t involve as much cleanup.

For spring, which has sprung, a random list of artsy things I would like to do/try/attempt someday, when time and space and money and such fickle things align properly:

• Re-finish and creatively paint furniture, in muted technicolor funky-but-classy patterns. You know, when I have the room to strip and store furniture.
• Art dolls, quirky creepy pseudo-Victorian porcelain nightmares in lace. This will likely require improving my sewing skills.
• Documentary film. I don’t know what subject, maybe something will come to me eventually. But I like documentaries, and have an odd desire to make one myself.
• Encaustic painting. Painting with hot wax! C’mon, that’s awesome. Expensive and messy, but awesome.
• Some sort of collaborative photo-based project to be star odyssey 2.0. No idea how to fix what went wrong with 1.0 yet, though, so will require pondering.
• Zen garden, with koi pond and fountain and meditating Buddha statues. Need a yard first.
• Another tarot deck, perhaps in a minimalist pencil sketch sort of style.

And I have a long-harbored desire to make an installation sculpture consisting of a skull stuffed with teabags and a top hat, entitled Requiem for the Mad Hatter.

Here are the finished bunnies, in bookish tea party glory:

I kind of can’t believe the numbered minors are complete. I’m really pleased with how they’ve all turned out, so often the minors are dull in comparison to the majors, and I’d like to think these hold their own. Now it’s just a matter of getting the courts completed, and then the deck is done. I doubt I’ll know what to do with myself then, I might need another epic art project of some sort.

In other news, I am going to endeavor to blog here more frequently. I was going to set a lofty goal of once a day but that seems too lofty at the moment. So I’ll start with several times a week and maybe attempt that every day thing in April.

I’ll need topics, though. Suggestions are welcome, just comment. Otherwise you’re just going to get more writing, art, kittens, and possibly a lengthy essay on why I love LOST in general and Michael Emerson in particular.

And you get a Watchmen review on Friday, of course.

I am sick of snow. I am bored with hibernating. It’s pretty, but I’m cold and I would like some greenery. Flowers and butterflies and a world outside my window not covered in ice, please thank you.

I am working on the 10s for the Phantomwise Tarot. They are all sketched and some of the paintings are started. I should be able to finish them by the end of the week.

The ten of cups got overrun with bunnies. Here’s a teensy peek:

I decided I only had a few cards left to be silly in, to make the deck more me than Rider Waite, and bunnies, books & tea seemed a good way to do it. The pents are rather non-traditional, too, and I managed to sneak each totem animal in their respective suits for good measure.

So, painting and editing in a winter wonderland, waiting for Spring and trying not to get impatient about it.

I sometimes forget I need to do that, to recharge and consume art rather than constantly working on my own. I’ve been busy with other things over the last week or so but haven’t been properly recharging.

And now in the last 24 hours I’ve read the entirety of Watchmen (I had been meaning to pick it up off the to-read shelf for ages) which was even better than I had expected, and watched Tarsem’s The Fall, which might just be my new favorite movie. It immediately earned a place in the all-time top ten at the very least.

I think I feel better because my creative well is fuller from binging on good books and good films and good tea. Must endeavor to be better about consuming them on a more regular basis.

I have always loved art with text and text with art, and this combines text & art in a really lovely way. Found his stuff by accident, too, doing Google image searches for “old books” when the umbrella caught my eye. It makes me unreasonably happy.

I have been on internet hiatus this week, which usually involves me avoiding the internet save for important things like e-mail and whatnot. It is remarkably beneficial to my productivity level. During this particular hiatus I finished the sixes for the Phantomwise Tarot and drank a lot of wine and thought about the novel a lot. I have something of a timeline for getting things done and I’m going to make charts and maps and helpful tools that will be, well, helpful. I hope.

Tonight the Phantomwise Tarot Shinies go on sale at Wyrding Studios. I have spent a fair amount of the day promoting them in various places and playing e-mail tag with Kythryne. I’m excited about it, I haven’t even seen the finished product in person but I’m sure they’re even lovelier than the photos, since Kyth’s stuff usually is.

I am very much ready for it to cool down and be nicely autumnal already. I always feel out of my element in the summer, despite being a July baby. I want sweaters and pumpkin spice lattes and crispy air and kittens that are more easily photographable.