The Magician Tarot Card Digital Painting

The Magician Digital Painting By Seth Keller

The second digital illustration piece in my series on tarot cards. It is called The Pries or Aaron. In Tarot cards he would simply be called The Magician. The wand is the rod of Aaron which is described in the Bible. The infinity symbol is the urim and thummin which priests were described as wearing in the Old Testament around their necks fastened on chains. The coin represents the Aaronic Priesthood's power  over the earth and temporal things. The sword of truth sits on the table with the cup which is the Spirit of Christ. The rose and lily represent the law of Moses and the new law of consecration respectively in the past and in the future.

For people who understand tarot cards they will recognize many of the symbols that I describe from the actual Magician card, but what I have done is re-purposed some of the symbolism to fit with my interpretation of the The Magician: I believe that it is a representation of Aaron who came out of Egypt with Moses. However, in the tarot card some of the interpretations of the symbols are slightly different.

As a side note for those who are interested in my process: I have found that I paint better pieces in Photoshop if I first sketch out my ideas on paper. Often I will come back and redraw them on tracing paper making corrections or changes I feel are needed. Then I will just take a picture on my phone and import it into Photoshop. Then I'll start painting on the top of it. For anyone who is interested in digital painting using any program I would recommend sketching on paper first. Other people will tell you to just use Photoshop to make your base drawing, which you certainly can do... If you've read some of my other post that is what I've done in the past. But I've found that just seeing the drawing in it's physical form on paper has helped me with the composition of the piece.

Feel free to like, comment, and follow my blog for more of my illustrations. Thank you!

The Fool Tarot Card Project Digital Painting in Photoshop

The Fool Tarot Card By Seth Keller

Recently I've been working on a series of pieces based on old Tarot Card. I even went out and purchased a book on interpreting tarot and a very interesting deck of cards for reference. I was interested most of all, in getting the symbolism correct. This card, The Fool, was my first in the series, but some of my later paintings are different in that I focus on my personal interpretation of who and what the tarot card is representing... It is my belief that tarot cards do hold truth in them--perhaps not of any mystical nature--but that they contain truth from religious beliefs that existed before the major spread of Catholicism in the world. And even later, they perhaps contain truth that was not mainstream, or acceptable in mainstream Christianity. It is my belief that tarot cards hold knowledge from this hidden form of Christianity that was in the underground for thousands of years during the dark ages. This knowledge was of course mixed with a variety of different symbols and belief systems from pagan cultures throughout Europe and the middle Middle East.

Note this is just what I suspect, I have not done very much formal research on the subject and I'm not sure if any such research even exists. I just thought it was very interesting how well some of the symbolism correlates from Christianity and pagan cultures in some cases. In my other Photoshop paintings I will point out those correlations. 

The dog in this painting is my dog Mocha she wasn't very cooperative when I tried to take her picture, she was far too excited to sit still. The fool represents freedom to me, but the moral warning is to be cautious not to use your freedom to your detriment. As you can see, The Fool is extraordinarily free but if he or she, is not careful they risk falling over the cliff. In some versions of the card the dog is trying to stop the fool from going too far, but Mocha just doesn't care...

All images in this blog are my intellectual property and are not for commercial or private use, except by my written permission from me, Seth Keller. Thank you for your interest in my art.