Category: Beyond the Garden Gate

Remembering Rocky Falls

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

My husband and I no longer do much traveling. With our vision problems, our driving is limited, and with 5 cats to care for, staying home is easier than finding someone to come in and care for our furry friends while we’re gone. Besides, we would miss our kitties too much if we went away for even a few days.

In the past, though, we did make occasional trips, often visiting Tennessee where my husband has family. One memorable trip was to the Smoky Mountains. This took place in 2022 when we had only one cat, so arranging for her care in our absence wasn’t quite so challenging.

One of the highlights of the trip — I’d long yearned to see the Smoky Moutains — was a visit to Rocky Falls, a gorgeous waterfall that is often photographed, and which has inspired countless artists like me. I took a few pictures for reference and started an oil painting soon after we returned home.

The creative process is messy. One of my favorite sayings is that “Creativity is making a mess and then cleaning it up..” For me, that best describes the way art works. And make no mistake about it, completing the “Rocky Falls” landscape was messy, indeed.

I began with several composition studies, working from my photos to find the right viewpoint for the painting. Next came a series of value studies. These were very, very quick sketches in my sketchbook to consider the different “tonal qualities” for the painting. In other words, these sketches were designed to guide me in the use of lights and darks.

Messy? Yes. Hardly anything more than scribbles, as you can see!

Sketch of three small landscape studies in pencil, showcasing different scenes with trees, rocks, and natural elements.

“Value” is one of the essential elements of art, and many instructors will tell you that it’s the most important. We’re told to “push our values”, to be sure our “lights are light” and our “darks are dark”. And in between these two extremes, we’ll find many shades of “medium value”.

To me, this is much of the meaning of tarot’s Temperance card. It’s a card of extremes, and more to the point, a card that teaches us how to bring these extremes together into a whole, how to reconcile opposites, how to find that “middle ground” in the situations we face in life.

And so it was that as I was creating “Beyond the Garden Gate”, my mind went back to Tennessee, back to Rocky Falls, back to the swirling waters coming together as if being poured out by cosmic hands. I remembered my value studies, my explorations of light and dark, and I recalled the importance of seeing this “complete range” of values. It’s true not only in art classes and studios; it’s a guiding principle in life.

The original “Rocky Falls” painting is oil 11 x 14.

A painting of a waterfall cascading over dark rocks, surrounded by greenery.

To make the image suitable for the deck, I used digital technology to “convert” the painting style to watercolor.

A watercolor illustration of a waterfall cascading over rocks, surrounded by lush green trees, with the text '14 Temperance' at the bottom.

For me, this card reflects the creative process itself. It speaks to the need to recognize extremes and to bring them together. Just as the water flows over these rocks, our creative energies surge forth and pour out into reality. And of course, every time I see this card, I’m transported back to the Smoky Mountains, back to a cool morning, back to my beautiful memories of Rocky Falls.

Deceptively Simple

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

I laugh every time I see this card — the 2 of Pentacles from Beyond the Garden Gate. I laugh because I remember all too well the frustrations I had when I first tried drawing a pine cone. Pine cones, you see, look quite simple. They’re clearly-defined shapes. They have an itneresting texture. They’re delightful subjects, too. Put one down on the table and it won’t go anywhere. It will just sit, looking at you, inviting you to draw it.

The first time I ever tried to draw a pinecone, the results were laughable. It turned out quite misshapen, quite out of proportion. Or so I thought. Looking back now through my old sketchbooks, I can honestly say “Hey, those first pine cones weren’t as bad as I thought.” Still, the frustration was there.

My next attempts at drawing pine cones didn’t fare much better. Again, in looking back, I can be more objective. At the time though, I despaired of ever being able to draw a pine cone that looked like a pine cone.

Of course, persistence does pay off and while practice doesn’t necessarily lead to perfection, it does bring progress. The pine cones you see adorning this card aren’t perfect, but they are pine cones! I chose to use them for this illustration because to me they represent a lot of “ups and down” — trying, failing, trying again.

The 2 of Pentacles relates to “difficulties in launching projects”, times when we “can’t get things off the ground”, so to speak. What we learn from the card is that life does have challenges, that there will always be those “ups and downs”, and we can make things easier for ourselves by not trying too hard for perfection.

When this card appears in a reading, ask yourself if you’re trying to juggle too many different things, if maybe you’re making things more difficult by seting your expectations too high. Maybe you’re worrying and fretting about things that you’re not even seeing clearly. So, relax. Take a deep breath. Focus on what’s really important and don’t worry about the rest. Do what needs to be done, and if at first you don’t succeed… you know the rest.

And I want to give a huge shout-out here to Linda Zaworski from “Cuppa and Cards” for the delightful photo she took. Linda has also shared “Beyond the Garden Gate” in several YouTube videos, so check out her channel!

Can I Really Do this Again?

~ Judith ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve happened to read Where It Began — a post in the Tales from Treasure Island blog — you already know that creating a tarot deck wasn’t anything I had planned, but the idea and inspiration came along at a time when I needed it.

I struggled with it. I had so many ideas for the cards, yet due to impaired vision, I wasn’t able to do the artwork I wanted. I turned to AI because creating that deck was important to me. Even then, it was a struggle. AI is notorious for adding extra fingers, having arms and legs attached to bodies at weird angles, and just being difficult in general. Some cards were easier than others. Some required days of frustrating work to get an image that was even close to what I could “see” in my mind. Thankfully Steve Champion, a talented tattoo artist from the UK stepped in to help me. Separated by an ocean, our collaboration was through email and a Google drive. I would upload, he would correct, I would download — and while it all sounds like a fairly straight-forward process, for someone who really had no idea what was involved in creating a tarot deck, it became a nightmarish array of image files in various stages. At one point I learned that some of my images weren’t “high-resolution”; later I learned that the dimensions I had used weren’t correct. Every card image had to be re-sized. Sometimes I felt like pulling my hair out. Mostly I wondered if the project would ever be finished.

I had decided, you see, to have at least a couple decks printed. One for me. One for Steve as a “thank-you” gift, so I had to learn about technical specifications at Make Playing Cards. Oh, I was a nervous wreck when it came time to upload my files.

Within two weeks, I had my deck — MY deck — in my hands. I could hold it, shuffle it, do readings with it. What an incredible feeling. Suddenly all the frustrations were a thing of the past. New ideas and inspirations were already coming into my head, and that’s when the question came.

Can I really do this again?

Can I take an idea, work through it, and somehow come up with another tarot deck? I realized how much I loved what I was doing and how very much I wanted to move forward. I can’t even say exactly when or how the idea came, but maybe it was because spring had just arrived. I love spring. I love all of nature. As an artist I’ve spent many, many hours drawing and painting outdoors. The idea of creating a tarot that resembled a nature journal somehow got stuck in my head.

This time, I knew a bit more about what I was getting into, what would be required to create and publish the deck. But… could I really do it again?

I started by creating a FOOL card, using an image generator. I played with several different ideas, and as I worked with the images, ideas were forming. I liked the idea of a FOOL who wasn’t even present in the card. The FOOl, you see, had already slipped BEYOND THE GARDEN GATE, leaving his knapsack and his faithful companion behind. Like the FOOL, I became curious. What might lie beyond that gate? I was eager to find out.

The deck came together, I began using my own art to create card images, and while I still struggled here and there, the process was easier this second time around. I proved to myself that, yes, indeed, I could do it again, and I intend to keep doing it again and again, learning more with each new deck.

Throughout it all, the encouragement I’ve received from friends both in and out of the tarot community has been tremendous. Thank you for believing in me and believing in this deck.