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Tarot Announcement

I’m excited to share that my tarot cards are now available in a new format that feels much closer to what they were always meant to be.

They are now produced as 4 x 6 cards with rounded corners and a glossy finish, designed to feel more personal, tactile, and meaningful than a small art print. Something to hold onto. Something to keep on an altar, tuck into a journal, or return to when you need a symbol beside you.

That matters to me, because I’ve never thought of these images as mere decoration. Each card is created slowly and intentionally, with care for both the artwork and the emotional life it carries.

This new format also reflects the larger vision behind the work: I am creating a full tarot deck, one card at a time. That will take time, because I don’t want to rush it. Each card needs to feel fully realized and truly part of the whole.

So yes, a complete deck is coming, but not overnight.

For now, these individual cards are available in the shop in their new format, and I’m genuinely happy to share them this way. They feel more like what they were always meant to become.

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Cicada Study

Studio day. I’ve been working through a series of cicada studies in Procreate, building them the way I usually do: ink first, then shading in restrained layers to test form and volume.

While checking the values, I temporarily hid the ink layer to see how the tones were carrying the structure on their own. What appeared underneath was a surprise. Without the linework, the image shifted into something softer and more ornamental, with an Arts and Crafts–era feeling—flattened, rhythmic, and more concerned with pattern than precision.

The inked version at right is undeniably more anatomically accurate, but the un-inked version at left feels more resolved stylistically. It has a quiet cohesion that the more literal rendering lacks.

That discovery has prompted a small course correction. I’ll be producing the final version without the ink layer, allowing the shading and shape to do the work on their own. It’s a reminder I keep relearning: sometimes the most interesting result shows up when you momentarily remove the thing you thought was holding the image together.

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Field Note no. 5

Back to the studio, part 2

It’s the new year, with new projects. It’s the best of times, creatively, and arguably the worst of times in the greater world. Invasions of other countries, friends without health care, there are always things to wish were different, to struggle with, to feel defeated by. BUT – I don’t have to feel defeated – ever – in my creativity. It is what keeps me going, it is where I find my truth and the place from which I stand with my friends. It is my connection to the best part of myself. 

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’m using the cold winter months to finish a novel. Instead of being deprived of sketching in nature during the winter, I am framing it as being on retreat to do the important work of bringing this novel into the world. 

Art pieces consist of sketches and refinements, learning anatomy of insects, understanding wing structures … nourishing my passion for the ways that the natural world resonate with our unconscious. This goes back eons, when early humans did not feel separate from nature and in fact relied on the creatures of the world for support, guidance, and mutual survival. Hence my efforts to invoke the honey bee, the dragonfly, the luna moth through artistic representation.

Stay warm friends, stay safe, and nurture your inner artist. AND the outer one.

Ash