Saturday 8 March 2014

Bonefire Tarot App went Live today!

    Bonefire Tarot App Has just gone live!!
     I have to say I feel pretty Swanky, being an App person, I might have to adopt a top hat and cane as regular attire and perhaps a little more swagger as I mix with the ordinary 'app-less folk around the village.
  Enough about me,
how are you today?

    Here are the links:


     I just gave it a spin on my ipad... Wunderbar!

Monday 3 March 2014

BonefireTarot Update, Creative Guilt and the Luxury Trades

 Bonefire has been commanding my attention these last few days. Sales have been up and I ran out of all the accompaniments.
   I have made Little white Books, sewn felt bags and drawn the wooden hearts. I have a small stock ready to send now.
   I will definitely be getting a box and booklet printed, if  I make a second print run, so if you like the more personalised approach, buy now, not later.
 
    The upshot of this has been. no more work has been done on Sarah Howard. I will paint today, though, (I get this alot) I have the feeling I should be doing some kind of mundane chore.
  I wonder when this feeling goes. Perhaps it is when your art makes enough money to support your whole family. I always have a sort of guilt when I give too much time to painting, as I become sparce with everything and more importantly everyone else in life.
   What is about being paid well for a dull job that alleviates that guilt? The self-sacrifice, the martyr in you. The fact that you are "suffering" the same as all others, who are lucky enough to have paid employment.

   I heard Art and design being termed a "Luxury Trade" the other day. I had never heard it before. I made me chuckle. I am a Luxury Tradee-Part-time.

Wednesday 26 February 2014

New SWOSH cards and the Bonefire Tarot App

I made two new cards yesterday for TWOSH so I'll put them up here for your perusal.
   The deck is skipping along fine, some cards go well, some not so much.
 I have about 70 sketches for cards, so there might be room to weed a few out.
  Currently there are 20 completed cards, I'll put a few more up when I'm not in a painting frame of mind -that does happen, but usually only when I'm a bit blocked, which has not really happened since I discovered card creation.
  I have to say I highly recommend making some kind of cartomancy deck for any one who is in any way visually creative; it is a seemingly bottomless pit of inspiration and spring board into deeper waters of self-discovery and education.
I've been advertising locally for a partner in crime, to make some workshops on Tarot and Creativity- no takers yet, or even likely, I want someone to hold hands with, when we are nervous and feeling like Charlatans.
  Oh yes and -for anyone who is here because they have a passing interest in Bonefire Tarot. I saw the menu page and icon for the Fool's Dog App which is in development, if it plays as good  it looks, I will be one happy lady.
 
  Here are those cards.

Tuesday 25 February 2014

   I was just scanning and uploading anotherThe Wyrd of Sarah Howard (TWOSH) card into my thread in Aeclectic Tarot, when I was struck with a playful thought- ( now this only a deck creation, playful thought so don't get too excited)......As I have quite a few animal cards in the deck- what if ?...wait for it......I made a Lenormand deck within the Oracle that is Sarah Howard.
    So Many of the the lenny elements are already lined up to go in.
 A deck within a deck!
  2 ways of reading!
  Am I utterly inspired?
  Am I confused and deluded?

     Well I thought it was worth a little consideration.
    In the meantime, this is the card I made yesterday for TWOSH.


Monday 24 February 2014

Social Media and THE WYRD of SARAH HOWARD.

    It is not that I don't like talking about myself, or backing  my art work.....
        Well actually it is that and more. I just want to be painting, but as I decided I want to sell decks and artwork then I will try harder with this blogging business.
    I have a somewhat small day-job, it is very dull and I am threatened with the need to make money, to eat and stuff. The Answer is- SELL MUCH MORE ART ! Much, much, much, more art.
      I am painting every day now and will post the results here. The works are for a new deck I am absorbed with.  An image a day. A high rate of turn over and top entertainment, if you include the scrapers I may also post.
    So if you want to find out the contents of this artists brain-box, about now would be a good time to do it.
      I have decided out of necessity, I will not engage my inner-editor for this blog as she is rather stifling and cares too much about typos and spacing. I save those kind of decisions for my art.
    Ps. I reserve the right to recant everything I say in this blog and blame it on the dog.
Sarah sits and Sarah sews.
acrylic and pen on paper 18cmx13cm
Feb' 2014
Artwork for the first card from THE WYRD OF SARAH HOWARD.
  My new Oracle deck in progress.

Saturday 28 September 2013

The Ace of Swords

I mentioned previously, this blog contains the pages written for the Bonefire companion book, selected at random, taking the form of a daily pick. The deck, not asked for further comment, nor posed any questions in the light of said pick; merely to show me a preferred card to write of that day. Fair enough, that said, we are unable to see the natural procession each suit and some of my comments seem a tad incongruous, unclarified by context.
I mention this now as many of the suit of Swords were conceived  extremely intuitively, the Ace was not one such card, something I refer to somewhat abstractly in the opening of  the exposition of the Ace of Swords.
Disclaimer aside, I give you;

The Ace of Swords

The Bonefire Ace of Swords wastes no time in disproving my emphatic statement in the introduction to the suit regarding not 'actively' employing mind to design the Airy element. It was a relative latecomer to the party of completed canvas's. I deliberately left the remaining three aces -(after the changeable Ace of Wands) as artistic treats. When I finished an unappealing card and this could be thematic, a creative issue or  even a card which cut to close to the bone, I had cards, stored as treats and they never listed horses or too many pentacles in their number.
For the Ace of Swords I desired a  clean, uncomplicated image. Having decided to release all the Aces from the thrusty grips of the Rider-Waite deck; the sword is free to hover over the landscape. Pristine and unsullied, it proudly wears the crown, laurel and palm fronds; regal, it needs no owner to command it.
 The Ace knows it's task; a fruit ninja, it slices cleanly and evenly though the apple, exposing the core of the issue. Resistance futile; one flash of the blade and all is revealed. We have reached the centre.
Bonefire Ace of Swords rules where intellect and thought are prized. Employ them right now above all else. There can be no space or time for anything more.
 Beneath the Sword we find the other elements diminished, over-shadowed, but beginning to stir. The fire in the sunrise, warming the earth and awakening it's kin and loosening the watery emotions and intuition held tight, frozen in the snow-capped mountains, but they are slow to react where the Sword has acted reflexively and received it's answers.
In a reading we are implored to act swiftly and coldly, but warned, not in hast; without consideration of the consequences, such a weapon might do irreparable damage.
Divorced, as this sword is, from the environment above which it floats, it fails to notice let alone, make use of the love or intuition which might guide it towards a kind of wisdom. As such this suggests a kind of simple strength wielded righteously and lawfully.
The Bonefire Ace of Swords indicates; excessive, unbridled pride should be guarded against. The modern placing of love of intellect above all else. The dominion of modern man and his science over his own ancestral wisdom and that of the collective, natural history of the planet. The ego which tells you you are somehow superior and far above all you perceive is represented in the single, bright green eye which sits front and centre of the gold crown, holds you high and mighty in your universe. One is reminded that it was ever thus.
    If your Sword of knowledge is too tightly held and too strongly thrust you will be left a 'chicken-head' when inevitably proved wrong. So remain open and fluid in your thought processes and be wary of allowing beliefs to become concrete, for whatever it is, that you hold dear and true will eventually become old fashioned, objectionable, conservative; ultimately open to ridicle and reduction to historical novelty.
 The upshot; you are diminished and made irrelevant.
.....So there.

Friday 27 September 2013

The 6 of Cups

      Right now I have a sense of deja-vous, not so much, I was here before, more, I typed up the 6 of Cups this time yesterday. I saved, unedited to make it nice this morning. Where is it this morning? Gone- that's where. So here I am- doing it again.
 Yesterday I was very tired and the explanation came out a little dreary, so perhaps it happened for a reason, like when you are on a forum and you possibly misconstrue someone's intentions and you react in a, 'burn your bridges' kind of a way. You hit the' post' button and, poof... the whole thing disappears into the ether. Of course you are livid and make sure your whole family knows it.... A bit of time passes, you have your tea and maybe a glass of wine......and it occurs too you the Universe has maybe, just stepped in and saved a tiny piece of your soul. At this point you feel all connected and the loving feeling is back and you rewrite the original  post, from a place of warmth and balance and hey presto...-well still no-one answers you, but you have precisely, no more enemies than you had before.....This is an acceptable result.
So without further delay, The 6 of Cups (mark 2)

The 6 of Cups

Following scraping our feet on the sharp rocks at the bottom of the river in the 5 of Cups, we find ourselves in a time if healing; the sun setting on what has, at last been a wonderful day.
In the Bonefire 6 of Cups, we find two young ladies.The older faces us. She is preoccupied with the tiny girl standing between us and passing her one of the 6 gold cups. She has chosen the cup where the lotus flower has grown tall and true.
The waters in which they sit are those of a shallow, warm lagoon; drip-fed by the ocean, teeming with life, but neither flowing, dangerous or tidal, symbolizing a time for passive reflection.
On the left, indicating the past we see a carefully constructed sandcastle, the work of the day. On the right we find a pretty cottage and garden, perhaps the ladies live here, perhaps it is a waking dream, to own such a home.
The Bonefire 6 reminisces and spends time looking to our own history uncovering gifts we can receive from the past. Both girls have the same hair, vibrant red and memorable; they are the same person. As she sits in the shallow waters of childhood play the woman engages with her own 'inner-child', her truth. She allows herself to feel as she did when summers days were long, safe and made only for fun.
The card invites us to join her in remembering our own childhood essence; our best and untainted version, painted long ago before the agonizing self-consciousness of ego emergence came and locked us to our thoughts.
An alternative interpretation for this card speaks of motherhood and what can be learned  from observing and joining with our children in their choice of activities.
The 6 of Cups stand large and strong in the lagoon, the brackish waters do not encroach and spoil the flowers. They survive well and bloom in this unlikely setting. We are reminded to look in unlikely places for answers and inspiration, we too might thrive and learn to improvise like the child who makes a doll house from a shoe-box and wears the shoes to bed.
Gifts from the past may be used to further our dreams, what we find there is always truth and though the woman might look back nostalgically and today, paint it with a rosy glow, she will find one of childhood's finest gifts, the ability to live in the moment- mighty valuable and so tricky to achieve.
 Where are you now living now?
 How about now?
 Now?
- Yep see, I lost you....