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.

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