Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl...

Just finished this Chapter 3 illustration for the book I'm writing, tentatively titled:

"Gods, An Epidemic: An Epic Comedy Drama With Apocalyptic Tendencies"

Each chapter starts with, and explores the theme of, a major arcana card of the Tarot deck. My heroine is a Tarot reader, not because she's 'gifted' or believes in it, but because she's a good listener & people pay well for that kind of thing ;) There are a total of 22 major arcana cards out of the 78-card deck. As a whole, they follow the basic hero's journey from "The Fool" to "The World".

I've had a kind of drawer's-block with this series, for over a year in fact-- until the other day, and *finally* came up w/ this chapter 3 illustration.

key words for her:
• Mothering ----- Fertility ----- Sexuality ----- Abundance
• Material prosperity ----- Pleasure ----- Comfort ----- Power
• Nature ----- Delight ----- Desire ----- Physical attraction
• Health ----- Sensuality ----- Beauty ----- Satisfaction

She represents many things, and typically holds a scepter & wears a crown - but i'm trying to strike a balance between these traditional meanings, and a natural sort of everyday person put in the way of being made to be these things.

When interpreting the Tarot, one must also consider the negative aspects of a card. For The Empress, this can be a kind of smothering. I liked the idea of using vines to indicate the fertility and potential of becoming overgrown -- but a friend helped me realize that this is what my 'shadow' lines were already doing... like they were creeping up from the right, and behind, to smother her...

Anywho, I think she's ready for her close-up:

Others in this series:

Chapter 2, 'The High Priestess' illustration here...

Chapter 1, 'Le Magicienne' illustration here...

Chapter 0, 'The Fool' illustration here...

Start reading 'Gods' here...

cheers,
me

'Gods', Holier Than Who?

Just finished my Chapter 2 illustration for the book I'm writing, tentatively titled:

"Gods, An Epidemic: An Epic Comedy Drama With Apocalyptic Tendencies"

Each chapter is based on a major arcana card of the Tarot- of which they total 22 cards out of the 78-card deck. As a whole, they follow the basic hero's journey from "The Fool" to "The World".

Here is my version of "The High Priestess" 

The High Priestess, from wikipedia:

"Knowingness – Love – Relationships

Wisdom – Sound judgment – Serenity

Common sense – Intuition

Mystical vision – introspection – otherworldliness

… intuitive knowledge. The water that flows from her gown is the 

collective unconscious…She is not merely the mistress of hidden 

wisdom, she has read the words and knows their deeper meaning. 

Generally, unlike The Magician, she does not explore the world in 

order to master it, but in order to understand it. That understanding 

often leads to the temptation of mastery...

She is also associated thematically with The Moon. She can 

lead to deep wisdom, but can also lead to madness…

When she appears in a spread, she typically counsels the Querent 

to seek new paths and hidden paths to wisdom. She can also be a 

warning to interrogate the lessons of the unconscious. It does not 

always lead us to wisdom.

She also warns the Querent to question how he or she has divided 

up the world; to test the judgments made in the past against the 

world as we have come to know it.”

Want more?!

Chapter 1, 'Le Magicienne' illustration here...

Chapter 0, 'The Fool' illustration here...

Start reading 'Gods' here...

cheers,

tracy

Back By Popular Demand...

More of my book, Gods, An Epidemic: An Epic Comedy Drama with Apocalyptic Tendencies {working title} and a new illustration for the same:

details of drawing:

Chapter 1

The Magician

Eve woke up with that indecipherable feeling of being simultaneously hungry and nauseous. “I’ll never drink again.” She swore as she half-walked, half-hobbled to the bathroom. After having a most glorious bladder relieving session, she made her way to the kitchen, hunched over and slow, like a decrepit and abnormally tall turtle. Passing her passed-out friend on the living-room sofa, she made no attempt to shuffle quietly; misery doesn’t so much love company as beg for it in a rather demanding tone.

She noisily poured herself some ice water, which she drank down in one go, then talked herself out of curling up in the corner on the floor in favor of attempting to make some breakfast; in the hopes that she was more in the nourishment-lacking state of gastro-intestinal things than the puke-your-guts-up one. To which end, she turned on the stovetop burner, plunked a pan on it, wrestled with the bacon packaging before popping it in the now too-hot pan, but then realized (horror of horrors!) the coffee wasn’t brewing, so got distracted and annoyed by the unclean pot from yesterday, which she washed out and began to count the number of scoops of coffee when she realized she hadn’t put in the rest of the bacon and the ones already cooking were beginning to burn because she’d turned the burner on High, and by the time she’d dealt with the Battle of the Bacon, she’d forgotten how many scoops she’d already put in the coffee filter and had to dump it out and start over, only she missed the trash can and half of the grounds ended up on the floor at which point she turned off the stove and opted for the curling-up-in-the-corner-on-the-floor option, in the hopes that the breakfast fairy would come and save her.

{continued...}

{if you'd like a refresher, start with: The Preamble; 

then: Chapter 0, The Fool}

cheers,

me

...Gods, An Epidemic... (a work in progress)

Chapter 0: "The Fool"
illustration by Tracy Yarkoni Odell
the fool symbolizes potentiality;
the pregnant pause, when anything is possible

working title:
Gods, An Epidemic

tagline:
An Epic Comedy Drama with Apocalyptic Tendencies

A novel in progress by yours truly {{me}}

detail 1:
the club/heart/spade/diamond fusion denotes the fool's potential, the wild card;
the lily represents spirituality and the fool's appreciation of beauty,
its white color speaks of innocence and purity of thought and action

the plan:
Wrap this up and send it off to publishers before I head back to University in the Fall (fingers crossed on both counts), posting chapters and illustrations here for your amusement.

detail 2:
the fool is seemingly unconcerned or unaware about walking off the cliff's edge,
a supreme act of idiocy/trust/faith, the first step of any adventure;
the dog can represent animal desires or the call of the 'real world' biting at her heels

sidenote:
Each of the 22 chapters corresponds to the major arcana cards of the Tarot - basically, it follows the hero's journey from 'The Fool' to 'The World'; so I'm kind of starting out of order here, with the Chapter 0 illustration of the fool (what? zero is a number too. don't hate on 'zero') but giving you the Preamble to read instead. Nevermind, a little chaos is good for the soul...

detail 3:
 all the possessions the fool might need for the journey are few,
symbolizing the significance of the spiritual over the material

{All comments/critiques gladly welcome!}

Gods, An Epidemic

In Hebrew there is a one-letter difference between

the words “wonderful” and “f ****d.”

…

Liminality is walking the line between two states of existence;
In other words, it is the holding of that aforementioned letter for ransom. 

…

Preamble

Gods can be forgetful too. You try living forever, and see if you’re memory doesn’t overload and short circuit once in a while; and not the kind of memory lapses that result in missing a dental appointment either. No. Think bigger. Wider. More… infinite. Brain farts of colossal proportions.

Like, forgetting that you exist.

…

Gods make sense of things. The natural state of our universe is complete chaos. Things naturally don’t make any sense at all, until a god gets a handle on it. The earth really did used to be flat until a god figured out that it didn’t make sense.

Gods and Goddesses are, as a general rule, immortal. But they can hardly be expected to maintain the same form of existence in perpetuity. It is incomprehensibly boring to be infinite and all-knowing all of the time – one must do something to while away the hours, and what better way to entertain oneself than to experience life as a mortal? Little else gives life more value than death itself; or at least, the certain knowledge of impending doom that shadows all living creatures of non-immortal persuasion. The promise of death kills boredom and meaninglessness like nothing else can; except perhaps for falling in love or having really good sex. The gods had a firm handle on the love and sex thing, so it was only natural that Death was their last bastion of intrigue.        


{{Click Here to continue...}}