It’s official… I have finished* the artwork for all of the pip and court cards in the Magic Pantry Tarot!! That’s fifty-six illustrations (more, actually, because I redid a few) down, twenty-five to go (there will be three alternate vegan cards in the Major Arcana in addition to the regular twenty-two)!

(*Will I decide to redo a few more illustrations before publication to ensure everything is up to standard and cohesive? I might.)

For the next few newsletters/blog posts, I’ll be showing you the finished art for the suits, starting with Cups, which I think might be my favorite. I am a Scorpio sun and November 10th is my birthday (I’m turning 33 this year!); the card associated with this decan of Scorpio is the Six of Cups. The Queen of Cups is also associated with Scorpio, as are several other cards. Cups are water and I am a very watery person, astrologically speaking, and very emotional, so these cards get me.

In this deck, Cups are represented by sweet and beautiful fruit. I LOVE FRUIT SO MUCH! I cannot express to you the joy that fruit brings me, and now living in southern California, I have access to it in abundance and at much cheaper prices than when I lived elsewhere.

Is this in large part because of unsustainable irrigation practices used in the United States to grow most of its produce in sunny California? Yes, yes it is. And importation from far off places like New Zealand and Chile as well. Overindulgence is something we might well want to be aware of when it comes to cups—and to how our fruit is grown, specifically its impact on our environment.

If you’ve been following this project for a while, you’ll have seen the majority of the Cups illustrations already. Due to my love of both fruit and the Cups suit, they were the first ones I ended up painting and so I had most of them done before the big break I took earlier this year. This is the first time all fourteen will be together, though, with the right titles.

Enjoy!