I wanted to share an early draft of The Devil and some experiments with a new version.

So grateful for the guidance of Coleman Stevenson for the edits on my deck, The Windy Path Tarot. This Autumn, as I go through the changes to make a more cohesive deck with a strong narrative and user friendliness, I am excited by how far my art has come as well as my confidence since its inception. 

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I kept the crows that I collaged from photographs I took into the first Devil in 2025, but I “couldn’t draw bats” so I just doodled paper-like cut outs of bat shapes, like you might see in windows at Halloween. With Coleman’s encouragement to put texture on the bats, I ended up drawing completely new ones. As cute as they are, I wouldn’t want to be surrounded by bats in this way…

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I think The Cure song “Pictures of You” is apt for the Devil, being haunted by the photographs of someone dear to you, to the point of perhaps not knowing if they’re real, but still having the awareness to write about it. Smith took the subject into the next stage with acknowledgment that he wanted more than to never feel this breaking, and ultimately, with the devil this healing with music and creative writing helps lead us to the path out of the woods to finally break down and fall from The Tower.

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I probably will not keep this wide range of bat colors, but I had fun experimenting with transparency and color, warping wing spans, and positioning this colony to confuse the cats on this part of their journey.  Do you have any bat art you absolutely love?!

My favorites are by Harrison Webb and my mother. I love the animals that Webb paints and this bat with a crown of flowers is framed by the perfect night sky. https://www.harrisonwebbart.com/portfolio/animals. Last year I was so excited to receive this bat art that my mother made me for Halloween. Here he is hanging on the reclaimed mirror in the living room.