Common Starling Represented by: Common Starling Upright meaning: Standing up for your beliefs, competition, perseverance, protection of territory and self Reversed meaning: Defeat, lack of self confidence, surrender, exhaustion Original 7 of wands design While designing the major arcana for Occult Ornithology I tried to incorporate elements from the original Rider-Waite deck in my designs … Continue reading Tarot Tuesday: Seven of Wands
Red-Legged Seriema Represented by: Red-legged seriema Upright meaning: triumph, success, victory, winning. It’s indicative of pride and high self esteem. Reversed meaning: losing, failure, loss of self confidence and self assurance. Red legged seriema sketch from when I originally designed the deck in 2020. I really wanted a red-legged seriema in my original major arcana … Continue reading Tarot Tuesday: 6 of Wands
I’ve been working on potentially creating a minor arcana for my tarot deck Occult Ornithology. It’s obviously a chance for me to include some birds that I feel were glaringly missing from the major arcana. Robin sketchbook page While I haven’t doodled any tarot cards today, I got warmed up for bird drawing by drawing … Continue reading Robin Sketches
I’ve been working on some new designs recently for screen printed back patches. My screen printer Carry On Screaming suggested I try designing some to be printed on white fabric as I’m a bit of a stickler for lovely gothic black. Some patches over the years, some of which are available on my Etsy Since … Continue reading Sunshine Puss sketch -> finished drawing
Hello readers, it’s been a while since I’ve post a blog post on here but with the Enshittification of social media, it seems as good a time as any to return to my lovely blog where I started sharing my work in 2016, a whole decade ago. She’s an oystercatcher, you’re welcome. I will of … Continue reading Returning to my blog in 2026
Occult Ornithology Tarot deck now available to pre-order!This week's card spotlight will be looking at the 18th card of the major arcana, The Moon, represented by a Lyrebird. My version of the card is represented by a superb lyrebird, a bird renowned for it's ability to mimic. When thinking about The Moon card, it was … Continue reading Card spotlight: The Moon
Occult Ornithology Deck: Available to pre-order This weeks card spotlight is the twelfth card in the major arcana, The Hanged man. My version of The Hanged Man is represented by a ring necked pheasant. When I fist discussed creating this deck with my partner we were suggesting different birds for cards, the first suggestion for … Continue reading Card Spotlight: The Hanged Man
Occult Ornithology Tarot- now available to pre-order!This week's card spotlight is the 16th card in the major arcana, The Tower When it finally came to the time of designing the card for The Tower, I didn't have a specific bird in mind, I just knew it should be a sea bird or bird that nests … Continue reading Card Spotlight: The Tower
Occult Ornithology tarot: Now available to pre-order! Todays spotlight will focus on the fifth card in the major arcana, The Hierophant, represented by an Onagadori Rooster Applying the idea of 'tradition' to a bird isn't necessarily an easy concept. Lots of birds have been revered for centuries, could I use tradition in that sense? That … Continue reading Card Spotlight: The Hierophant
Occult Ornithology- Now on Kickstarter! The next card featured in the spotlight is the tenth card in the major arcana, The Wheel of Fortune. Deciding what should portray the Wheel of Fortune in my deck wasn't immediately apparent, I knew it needed to have a circular motif and the idea of the nest seemed fairly … Continue reading Card spotlight: The Wheel of Fortune
The Art of Katie Whittle 