Giant Tarot Cards

March 2002

Explanation

With the advent of Giant Cardboard Stashes like the ones I painted, some people want to play giant Gnostica or Zarcana, but finding tarot cards that are large enough to hold Icehouse pieces that are eight times normal size is somewhat difficult. Sure, anybody could sit down and make a giant Tarot deck out of posterboard, but it would be expensive, and take a lot of time. If 26 people teamed up, however, and did three cards each, it would only cost each person a few dollars and take a few hours. Thus, a dream was born.

Led by Ryan McGuire, a bunch of Looney Labs Mad Lab Rabbits and other pyramid fans decided to pitch in and try to make the first giant tarot deck ever. Above, you can see my contributions.

Both are inspired by the art of the Armenian-American Abstract Expressionist painter Rabo Karabekian, as was my sweatshirt design, The Temptation of St. Anthony.

Materials

Both of my cards so far are crayon on posterboard. By crayon, I mean good old kindergarten wax crayons. In fact, I'm using crayons from the same tin of crayons I used when I was a little kid. the tin has a covered bridge on it.

The Process

I did sketch the designs out in pencil first, but then I just colored them with crayon. I'd forgotten how much fun coloring can be.