Did Pixie do the coloring of the RWS?

Otello

I beg your pardon, Tarotbear & LRichard: are you sure your paintings are actually watercolor and not tempera? :)
Watercolor is a very fast method, (much faster then tempera); a professional painter need few minutes to color a B&W drawing.
(I assume wiki is correct: "They were either colored with watercolor by Smith or colored by someone else after the fact.")
 

tarotbear

My 'paintings' are all digital, done in MS PAINT - no drying time required.

A 'professional' painter only needs 'a few minutes' to color a B & W drawing :confused: HOLY TEMPERA Batman! The Flash sure paints fast!
 

Richard

I beg your pardon, Tarotbear & LRichard: are you sure your paintings are actually watercolor and not tempera? :)
Watercolor is a very fast method, (much faster then tempera); a professional painter need few minutes to color a B&W drawing.
(I assume wiki is correct: "They were either colored with watercolor by Smith or colored by someone else after the fact.")
I used multiple layers of watercolor to keep the color areas as smooth as possible, while allowing good color saturation and shading. Usually watercolor is a fast and loose medium. When trying to stay within the lines and keep the color smooth, it can be time consuming. A more opaque medium can make that somewhat easier. Watercolor need not be wimpy looking. I use Winsor&Newton professional colors which have high chroma. In the Hanged Man, I used gouache (opaque watercolor) for the grey background. I have never used tempera. I have been tempted, but it seems like too much fuss and bother.
 

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Otello

Well, I painted my deck almost 20 years ago, I used tempera and was quite fast, too, but my drawings were much more simple then yours.
But I'm not at all a professional painter and I never used watercolor...
well, I've been an interior designer for many years, I know there's a very little difference in price between a B&W or watercolored reprint of Piranesi
https://www.google.it/search?q=stam...rOIKj4gTFpYHIAQ&ved=0CDIQsAQ&biw=1431&bih=843
I've seen people painting these B&W prints - they are often students at the Academy of Fine Arts - and yes, they need only few minutes, more likely they are faster then me with the digital color filler. :)

More seriously, I think we are looking the problem from the wrong side.
IMHO, a professional painter wouldn't have used watercolor for a painting needing "to stay within the lines and keep the color smooth"
But, actually, did PCS needed to stay exact whitin the lines and keep the color smooth?
I'd say no: there was no photocolor at that time, there was no need of this level of precision, as someone else will prepare the printing plates anyway, using the B&W as a reference.
Of course I have no evidence, but, admitted that PCS did the coloring and did use watercolor, I imagine the original had a look more similar to some Hugo Pratt watercolor then to the solid color version :cool2:
https://www.google.it/search?q=hugo...fe_rd=cr&ei=VmfyU-3XNIze8ge2-oGYAw&gws_rd=ssl
 

Lee

I used multiple layers of watercolor to keep the color areas as smooth as possible, while allowing good color saturation and shading. Usually watercolor is a fast and loose medium. When trying to stay within the lines and keep the color smooth, it can be time consuming. A more opaque medium can make that somewhat easier. Watercolor need not be wimpy looking. I use Winsor&Newton professional colors which have high chroma. In the Hanged Man, I used gouache (opaque watercolor) for the grey background. I have never used tempera. I have been tempted, but it seems like too much fuss and bother.
Great job coloring, LRichard, and amazing to see such bright and deep colors with watercolor.
 

Richard

......More seriously, I think we are looking the problem from the wrong side.
IMHO, a professional painter wouldn't have used watercolor for a painting needing "to stay within the lines and keep the color smooth".....
Nor would it be wise to use tempera, which has a brittle paint film, to color cards, which are subject to flexing during shuffling and use. The preferred support for tempera is a wood panel.
 

Otello

Nor would it be wise to use tempera, which has a brittle paint film, to color cards, which are subject to flexing during shuffling and use. The preferred support for tempera is a wood panel.

Ehm, Bonifacio Bembo used tempera! :p

More seriously, you're absolutely right, if you're speaking about hand painted decks, but I was speaking about PCS originals.
 

ravenest

Narrated by Christopher Lee, no less!

Took me a while to find this. If you go to the 35-36 minute mark Stu Kaplan discusses Pixie. HOWEVER - she is painting the 3 Swords but I don't think it's historically accurate and that 'visions while she listened to music' stuff - I don't think is part of the RWS. What Kaplan says and what the producers filmed do not necessarily go together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVJtaaVWznc

I was just thinking, before I read your post ... It cant have taken long to colour the 3 of swords .
 

tarotbear

I was hoping there might be something in the 'Commemorative Centennial ' set - but there really isn't.

In the accompanying book 'The Artwork and Times of PCS' Mr. Kaplan does not make mention of the 'coloring', but on page 81 is a copy of the letter she wrote on 11/19/09 and at the bottom she says: ' I have just finished a big job for very little cash; a set of designs for a pack of Tarot cards - 80 designs. I shall send some over - of the original drawings - as some people may like them. I will send you a pack (printed in colour by lithography) (probably very badly!) as soon as they are ready - Dec 1 - I think."

Does this tell us anything?
 

roppo

We can say PCS was a great hand-coloring artist. She did not trust any mechanical printing process when it came to the reproduction of color tone. She hand-colored 500 set of Widdicombe Fair, each set having 13 sheets. And she hand-colored the monthly magazine The Green Sheaf. It must have been a tremendous task. So I think the coloring of RWS was not so a hard work for her standard. The original size of the RWS illustration was 100mmx173mm. The actual printing was done by Spraig & Co..

In the BW drawings PCS left spaces for later coloring, as we see in the cloth of The Fool, or the lady's gown in the 9 of the Pentacles. In the latter case she first drew the lines of Venus signs by pen and ink, but soon changed her mind and used pencil, as we can detect in the drawing of PKT.

I believe PCS did the coloring, or color-designing of RWS.