Ace of Swords (Patreon)

One of the key ideas I feel confident in for the Minor Arcana is to find a distinct set of visual elements and colors that correspond to each suit. While I'm not 100% on all of them yet, I do love the idea of doing the Swords in red.

After dumping the idea of the floating hand, the next change in my approach came in the form of emphasizing the background. I've been guilty of being overly indulgent in my backgrounds over the past few years and I want to start brining the focus back to the foreground. This piece feels like it strikes that balance much better than my initial sketches and creates much stronger vibes as a result.

The sword is the focus of this card and cloud parting behind it brings the depth of its blade into focus.

This isn't fully polished yet, but it feels like I'm starting to get a sense of what I need to do in order to succeed with one of these paintings. I'm going to move on to the other wands next to see if I can build the full set for this rank before expanding to the more figurative pieces.