Temperence XIV

The figure in this card is often portrayed as an angel. I started drawing some wings, didn't like how they looked (in terms of the over-all design/layout of the card), so away they went. We can still think of her as an angel if we want to, or not.

Typically we will see that the figure is standing with one foot on the ground, and the other in water. Drawing the figures more up close as I have been doing usually means that we don't see the feet. For example, in the Hanged Man, the foot he is hanging from is cropped out of the picture; we can't see what he is hanging from, or is he simply hanging in space? You could say that something is missing, or you could also say that this adds a bit of a twist to the card. In my version of Temperance, the figure initially just ran off the bottom of the page. As I was drawing the water, it occurred to me to draw it so that the figure is actually standing in the water. I would also point out that if you think about it, her feet are standing on the ground underneath the water. In fact, if the bottom is muddy or at all squishy, her feet may actually be sunk right into the earth. Rather than standing on the ground and dipping her toes in the water, she is now even more connected with the water, and, if we can assume that her feet are at least somewhat sunken into the earth, more connected there as well.

As previously mentioned, I have eliminated the wings in this drawing, but have kept the radiant glow around her head. The angel in the RWS card looks downward; here, her head is tilted back, her eyes are closed; her expression is not quite ecstatic, but more what I would refer to as beatific. The cups are almost directly opposite one another. The water is not being poured from one cup to the other; rather, defying gravity, it flows back and forth between the two cups in an arc-like shape (which may also cause some to think of a rainbow).

(Drawn on June 14, 2009)