See how digital sketches led to an unexpected turn toward tarot-inspired painting

This is the beginnings of a painting is based on the Goddess Nyx, a Greek goddess who is the daughter of Chaos. She is one of the oldest deities in the Greek pantheon and is considered so powerful that even Zeus is scared of her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyx

While doing research on the goddess, I came across an image of her with a cloth that represents the night sky, in the process of throwing it up into the air to create the night. This became the overall theme. Because she is primordial, I wanted her feet to be touching the ground, almost like she might be rising from the darkness herself.

Having a background in costume design, I pictured her dress as thin gathered and pleated layers of very flowy tulle or net, sewn onto an underlayer of flesh-coloured fabric. Parts of the dark fabric would be gathered and shaped to stand proud of the body, dissolving into a mix of smoke and ink dropped in water and flowing fabric.

Let me take you through my process:

I started with super rough thumbnails - these were really just to figure out an overall idea, quickly jotting down things that came to mind with as little judgment as possible.

!20250304_164531.jpg

Then I figured out the pose and anatomy as the base that everything gets built onto. I used the golden spiral to help lay out the composition.

You can see just how rough it all looks when zoomed in. At this point I was figuring out the overall values and colours.

Something just wasn't feeling right with the digital approach. I kept going back and forth, doing the same parts over and over again. After letting it rest, I found inspiration in the Rider-Waite tarot card deck. I wanted to create something like a tarot card, but a little more modern and painterly. So I reworked the illustration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider–Waite_Tarot

The final sketch is done in blue - I like to do my sketches this way because I know the colours can get darker and it just feels more like a sketch. While I felt like I "should" be doing a fully rendered painting with no hint of line, this linear style feels truer to what I want to do right now.

I'm now excited to transition this piece to traditional media, I also want to experiment with silver foiling, both on the original painting and on any prints I might make of it.

Please follow along to see more of my creative process.

Best,
Olivia

1. Meet Nix, Primordial Goddess of Night, in her earliest form. Getting the anatomy right is everything - when you're creating a deity so powerful even Zeus feared her, every line has to hold that ancient strength.

2. Creating Nix, Primordial Goddess of Night. Here, the golden spiral guides her movement as she casts darkness across the sky. Ancient deities deserve ancient mathematics to guide their composition.

3. Process study for Nix, Primordial Goddess of Night. Digital explorations led me to realize this piece needed a different approach entirely. Sometimes you have to get lost to find the right path - in this case, toward the world of tarot.

4. Nix, Primordial Goddess of Night, in her sketch form, ready to be transferred to canvas. Working in blue keeps the mystery alive while I plan the next stage - silver foiling and traditional media. Some pieces tell you exactly how they need to be made.

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