Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 7th, and we’re pleased to release the lat­est episode of our pop­u­lar orig­i­nal series on the Tarot: “Tarot @ Teatime”, on the air Thurs­days and Sun­days at noon and 4pm Pacif­ic Time/SLT, 8pm and mid­night in the UK.

In Episode 23, Hon­ey and Wil­low dis­cuss the Druid­craft Tarot.

Will Wor­thing­ton cre­at­ed the images for the beau­ti­ful Druid­craft Tarot. He is often inspired by the work of the pre-Raphaelite artists, par­tic­u­lar­ly their use of the nat­ur­al imagery of the British Isles cou­pled with the Arthuri­an leg­ends. He paint­ed the images of the Druid­craft Tarot deck using an ancient medi­um called Egg-Tem­pera, which is a tech­nique also used by the pre-Raphaelite painters.

Egg-Tem­pera is cre­at­ed using fine­ly ground pig­ments mixed with the con­tents of an egg yolk. The out­er skin or mem­brane of the yolk is punc­tured and the liq­uid yolk is drained into a cup, mixed with a few drops of an extend­ing agent such as white vine­gar, oil of myrrh, or even water. Then the ground pig­ment is added. The extend­ing agent keeps the egg-tem­pu­ra from dry­ing too quick­ly — oth­er­wise the egg yolk dries imme­di­ate­ly upon con­tact with air. Egg tem­pera is not a flex­i­ble paint and requires stiff boards; paint­ing on flex­i­ble media will cause cracks to form and chips of paint to fall off.

Wor­thing­ton paint­ed the Druid­craft Tarot images on care­ful­ly pre­pared wood­en boards paint­ed with lay­ers of ges­so, cre­at­ed from fine­ly ground white chalk and ani­mal glue, which were then sand­ed smooth. Egg-tem­pera dries quick­ly, and pro­duces a smooth, rich mat­te fin­ish when it is dry.

The Druid­craft Tarot, Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm (Authors), Will Wor­thing­ton (Illus­tra­tor), St. Martin’s Press, Revised edi­tion (March 2019), ISBN 10: 1250307422

Missed any episodes? Catch them on our Mix­Cloud feed!