The tarot is a deck of 78 cards, and the earliest versions date from the Middle Ages. Over the years, people have been creating their own versions. Here's mine.
Here's my first draft of the Magician. Well, it's a start.
Here's another version. I liked the design, but I've fiddled with the textures and the colours a bit. I had to compress the file rather heavily to end up with a reasonable file size, so the colours aren't ideal.
Usually the magician is shown as an adept at his altar, his wand in his hand and his other tools - the pentacle, the cup and the sword - in front of him. He has lifted his wand, as if to make the connection between heaven and earth.
The Magician's tools symbolise the four elements, and his possession of them means that he has mastered the elements and, hence, life itself. Within the Tarot's major arcana The Magician is card number one, man grown into the maximum of his potential.
And yet, while I was working on the card I found something claustrofobic about the magician, locked up within his orderly little world along with the tools of his trade. Through the window, its decoration symbolising the four elements, the same fog is visible that can be seen on card zero, The Fool. The challenge is the same for both - all the magician's knowledge will not save him from the leap into the unknown. And the fool may not be able to talk the talk, but the magician needs to learn to walk the walk.
On this page Transitional HTML 4.01 and CSS 1 are used. If you're seeing this text you either have CSS switched off in your browser, or you're using a browser that can't handle CSS. If you're using an older browser version, you might want to consider upgrading.