A lush 78-card Tarot deck with birds and other flora and fauna of North America, illustrated with hand-colored linocuts.
Happy Halloween!! 🎃🎃🎃
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/emibrady/the-brady-tarot-second-edition/
Now that the first edition of the Brady Tarot has sold out, I'm returning to you once again, dear Kickstarter backers, with a humble request for support! Let's keep the Brady Tarot a 100% indie deck, and I can only do that with your help.
More info coming very soon! I'll post one more update here once Kickstarter #2 is live to provide a link, then all updates on this project will officially move to the second edition's campaign.
See y'all soon!
-Emi Brady
It took just over 2 years of the hardest work I've ever done, but we've finally come to the end of this incredible whirlwind of a Kickstarter campaign! The final colored print was shipped off yesterday.
They call this platform Kickstarter for a reason: this campaign truly kick-started my career as an artist, and allowed me the space to bumble through and figure out how to be a professional. While I certainly can't claim to have executed everything perfectly, I look back and really feel a sense of pride in what we've accomplished here. I say "we" because every one of my backers were part of this project. The Brady Tarot would not have been brought into the world without the support of each and every one of you, my backers. I will always carry gratitude in my heart for all of you!
I think about how far I've come in my personal and professional life through this project, and it gets me all misty-eyed. There were a lot of triumphs as well as a few failings and mistakes. Ultimately, so many important lessons in gratitude, self-care, and work ethic.
The biggest lessons for anyone thinking about running a Kickstarter: however long you think a big project like this will take (each and every step of it!), multiply that by four. Patience and determination is key. Don't over-promise on goods. Learn your lessons within your failings, but also forgive yourself. Breathe.
So, what's next?
In the next week, I will be putting the linocut prints up for sale on the Brady Tarot's website.
In the coming months, my designer and I will be putting finishing touches on the second edition's box and book design. Although I've had the first edition for only about 7 months, I am quickly running out of decks! There is a very good chance I will be running another Kickstarter campaign to help fund that second edition. I've also been thinking about some really cool Kickstarter exclusive merch that won't break the bank or be too labor-intensive on my end, so stay tuned for that!
Finally, I will be working on new pieces of art unrelated to the tarot, but within the same spirit. I am so excited for this next body of work, which will be the first project in my new studio space! I will be posting pictures of these pieces as I work on them on my personal instagram account.
THANK YOU ALL for such a beautiful 2 years. Making this deck fulfilled some real magical destiny stuff for me, and it never would have happened if it wasn't for all of you.
! ! T H A N K Y O U ! !
Forever yours in carving/printing/sweating/crying/laughing/creating,
-Emi Brady
The last couple of months have flown by as I reached the end of this incredible Kickstarter while I simultaneously moved into a new studio space! A final farewell and thank you update will directly follow this one, but I really wanted to post the two progress updates that I promised first:
Once we completed all the printing and waited patiently for the prints to dry, I returned to Open Press to collate the prints. Collation is signing, numbering, chopping, and putting the prints in order. This took me about 25-30 hours of work, and it spanned over 2000 prints. Mark also helped with chopping because you can get wicked cramps from doing it too long by yourself!
Once that step was completed, we put all the prints in order, and put together the complete sets (5 uncolored and 3 colored, 8 in total). The sets include the card backs as well as a colophon.
Then I had to pack them all up and drive them back to Denver!
After shipping out the uncolored prints y'all had ordered, I had to complete the 30-ish hand-colored prints. I talked a little about that process as it applies to single prints in the main body of the Kickstarter campaign, but doing multiples of the same image takes a slightly different approach. In order to have consistency, I must color multiple prints at once and color the same parts of each print at the same time. That means mixing colors in larger batches, especially when they are large flat areas, as seen in the Sun.
I also used the cards themselves as reference as I worked, which was a trip!
Once coloring was complete, I sandwiched the prints between damp paper and flattened them under a lot of weight overnight. Once dry and flattened, I coated each colored print with a UV-protective varnish to protect the gouache, which is extremely light-sensitive. The black oil-based ink I use to print from the blocks is extremely light-fast, in contrast.
Then I shipped them off! I shipped out the very last colored print yesterday, which felt totally surreal.
I love this process so much!!
The monumental task of collating is complete (detailed update about that process coming soon!), and uncolored prints are going out this week! I emailed everyone that ordered uncolored prints to confirm your addresses today. I will not ship your prints until your address is confirmed, so please check your email if you're expecting a print! If I have not emailed you and you are expecting black and white prints only, please get in touch with me!
I will begin painting hand-colored print orders once the uncolored prints ship, and will continue sending emails for address confirmation as I work through them. I'm not 100% on how long those will take as I do have a sizable stack to get through, but my guess is a month. It will be my sole focus until they are all complete! I plan on coloring them in order (0-XXI, Feathers, Horns, Arrows, and Roots in that order). There will be an update about how you do hand-coloring of batches of the same image for those of you that are interested in the process!
Another update soon!
-Emi