We need to talk about… my new addiction

Recently I’ve been getting lost in AI generative art and a little bit of animation.

Many, many rabbit holes to fall down. And much hand-wringing over the ethics of AI… no doubt the subject for another blog.

I began dabbling early last summer when I was looking for a way to illustrate some of the blog posts and pages on this site. Before I knew it, I had to admit to myself that I was in fact working on creating a Tarot deck of my own.

Inspiration

I have been inspired by other AI deck creators, such as artist Ines Trickovic, who created the striking Awakening the Infinite Tarot deck. I was encouraged by an interview with her and Janine Worthington, Chair of the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI) and creator of The Inbetween Tarot and the Oracle Deck of Bridges, in which they discuss some of the objections people might have to AI decks as well as the more general challenges indie deck creators face getting a deck to market.

When the Devil drives

I chose the Devil card as the image to share with you for this post… because, right now, I’m obsessed with the project and I’m kind of obsessed with him, this version of him anyway. Anyone working with AI generative art programmes will know that sometimes it takes a hundred prompts or more to get the image, element of an image, that answers your ‘vision’ and then takes you beyond – which is where you want to go.

And sometimes it takes just one.

Sometimes it makes you catch your breath as it takes your idea and runs away with it… or crushes your dream and shits on it. Ha!

For me, The Devil card was illusive (the results were clichéd, either sleazy or cheesy, if I’m honest), so I scrapped all my original prompts and went for a different angle… and there he was, almost fully formed in one prompt.

And he’s kind of hot… as he should be. Hell and temptation and all that 🔥

What next?

I’m unsure.

At the very least I will have a deck for my own personal use and to illustrate my writing on this site. But, of course, now I want to share it with the world.

Each card is a multi-layered digital composition of varying complexity. Whatever objections people may have to AI art, I feel confident that there is so much of my work, my creativity, my skill, knowledge and imagination in the cards I have produced that I can call each of them my own creation.

I’ve developed a new, deeper relationship with the cards and myself, as a person who creates stuff, in this process. Definitely more on that later.

In my usual style of self-promotion I will just leave this here in the hope that you will stumble across it and show some interest…

Kidding! I know that’s not how decks get published…

For the moment, I’m doing the work and getting it done the only way I know how: card by card.

I’d love to share it with you

If you are interested in news and previews of my nascent Still Small Voice Tarot deck, please sign up to my newsletter at the foot of the page and I will send you a one card reading from the deck. And if I haven’t created that card yet (I’m about 70% of the way through right now) I will create the card for your reading.