Ugh. Well, I'm happy to have moved on to the next sketch, but I have issues with this one.
First of all, when I cut the cards and then drew this one, my first instinct was to pick another one instead. After all, just yesterday I drew the Two of Wands, and I was hoping for a little more variety in my life. So I went ahead and picked the next card from the stack -- and it was the fricking Two of Wands again. So clearly I just needed to stop whining and start drawing.
I was pretty happy with some of the detail here, and while the concept isn't terribly original, I still think it communicates something about the card. Unfortunately all I can see right now is that I have drawn my second disembodied hand in two days. I need to be a little more fearless when it comes to choosing what to portray, lest we end up trapped here:
Just when I became proud of myself for making it look like this new hand was actually supporting the cupcake (I was a little disappointed yesterday that my chopsticks weren't being gripped -- they just sort of dangled there lifelessly), I realized that the hand is still pretty much even in the same position as the one in the Two. As lazy as that may seem, maybe it's also an interesting comment on the relationship between these two cards. The Two takes that burst of energy and potential and does something with it. No major adjustment necessary, it's pure follow-through.
In this case at least, there's way more thematic precedent for the disembodied-hand trick. That's sort of what I was thinking when I started sketching it out. I don't plan to hew very closely to the RWS deck from here on, but in the very beginning I can't help keeping things as simple as possible.
I think I unconsciously hit on the cupcake idea because of this thread on MetaFilter about "cupcakes for men". (Can't get any more phallic than this one, boys!) I left the banner deliberately blank, thinking that it might symbolize all that is unwritten and unforeseen in bold new leap into the future. Looking at the scanned version, however, the whole card seems eerily... empty. I need to get braver about filling in all that space -- it's totally all mine to fill. Like, if someone tells you to blow out the candle and make a wish, you don't wish for all the sorts of things you could obtain pretty easily. You make the biggest, most shameless wish you can imagine!
I guess if nothing else, this page turned out to be a one-card reading about this whole sketchbook thing. Going forward, I'll try to inject more of that Ace intensity into my drawing and get a little messy.
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