Palimpsest Lenormand

Bertrand

Hello,

this deck has been announced in the advertisement section, but I thought it might be of interest to deck creators to open a discussion about that kind of approach in the "deck creation" section.
There are a few informations on the page
http://www.tarotparis.com/palimpsest-lenormand/?lang=en
and some scarce notes about my first attempts at creating a deck from an existing deck.

Did you already try to convert a standard deck to a cartomancy deck ?
What tools did you use ?

This Palimpsest Lenormand has been made with a standard poker deck where 2 to 5 were removed, tipp-ex and pens made the magic happen.
This isn't the way to go to create your personalized deck as tipp-ex or paint wouldn't last, or cards would need to be laminated. Using an uncoated deck (if you can find one) would also be a better idea than using a plastified deck if your purpose is to create a unique reading deck.
However this simple technique is really enough to create a model deck that will be reproduced.

At several moment I thought about transformation decks and obviously a Lenormand could be created as a transformation deck, but the "traditional" imagery may suffer from that approach.
 

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Winterchild

Palimpsest

I absolutely love palimpsest..... I use it in my journals, letters, altered cards...blah de blah... in varying degree's. Never made a deck..... one day! I am waiting for the page to load!

I got my first Lenormand the other day, but no nothing about it at all yet!!

Totallynnew system for me :)
 

garmonbozia

very cool. I plan to order one of these with my next Gamecrafter order!
 

Madame Squee

Thank you for sharing this very interesting idea and technique. :love:

I am in the process of ordering your Palimpsest Lenormand deck and also finding a suitable deck of playing cards in my cupboard to experiment with. :)

In addition, this looks like the ideal solution for dressing up the extremely boring pips in my Dreampower Tarot deck. I was already thinking about gluing pictures to them, but I like this palimpsest idea a lot more. I'm thinking I could remove a layer of paper from the middle of each card to create the canvas, or I could apply a paint... I can't remember what it's called, but there is one for preparing actual canvas that might work.

I'll let you know what happens, but unfortunately, it won't happen overnight. :*
 

Cassandra022

just had to ask...i just read a cathrynne valente novel by the same name...i'm pretty sure your deck is totally unrelated, but out of curiosity, where did its name come from?
 

Bertrand

just had to ask...i just read a cathrynne valente novel by the same name...i'm pretty sure your deck is totally unrelated, but out of curiosity, where did its name come from?

Hello Cassandra

this is the process the deck was made : taking a regular deck, covering it to draw something new, that is basically the definition of a palimpsest. Although I didn't think about this as a directing concept, the name seemed obvious when the deck was finished.
 

garmonbozia

yikes! I was going to place a GameCrafter order this week and I have this in my cart.
Price went up $7 since last week? I think I'll pass for now.
 

Madame Squee

Oh dear, an increase like that is upsetting! I wonder what happened?

Even so, I have to say that I LOVE my Palimpsest Lenormand deck. There's just enough going on in each card to make it interesting, without overwhelming the basic symbol. I've been reading with it for several weeks and meaning to come back and write about it, but it seems like I never have enough time to say anything beyond "I love it!", which isn't really enough to do it justice or give anyone an impression of what they might expect from it.

First, I actually knew that the Palimpsest would suit me personally, because I think having a reference to the associated playing card on each Lenormand card is essential, and the idea of having the Lenormand picture and number drawn over the playing card is perfect -- particularly when it has been accomplished in such a thoughtful, whimsical style.

If I understand how he did it, Bertrand created the canvas for the Lenormand card by painting a white foundation on the face of a playing card -- leaving the playing card indices visible, which is great, but Bertrand has actually gone much further than that in my opinion. He has allowed some bit of a ghostly image of the original playing card to surface and become part of his Lenormand sketch -- but not just in the sense of a transformation playing card. The best way I can describe it is that I feel like I'm looking through layers of time, with the present overlaying the past, but not obscuring it entirely -- I can still see or sense what's behind it.

Before ordering the deck, I must admit I felt some apprehension about whether or not I would enjoy all of the sketches, because I could see a only a few on Bertrand's website. However, my enthusiasm for the technique finally won out, and I'm very glad it did, because every sketch is pleasing, and all them together present a really lovely, cohesive panoramic spread. I'm including one of my favorite cards with this post -- the Snake, which I think is a good example of Bertrand's creative genius in this beautiful, readable Lenormand deck.

Finally, I hope to order another Palimpsest deck in the near future (in spite of the $7 increase), because I have to have back-ups of the decks I love to read. Plus, the physical deck is good card stock, same size as a playing card deck, and the printing is very well done. I'm very happy with it.

Oh, and I almost forgot to say that I love the back design, too. It feels historical.

Peace.

Squee:*
 

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Bertrand

Madame Squee > Thank you very much for this wonderful feedback. The process is just as you described : occulting the existing card with white (simple tipp ex in fact) and drawing directly onto it, then a picture of the card is taken and adjusted in a graphic manipulation software.
I'm glad you enjoy the transparencies effects, your description is way better than what I could write.
I'm also happy you enjoyed the backs, it is inspired by XVIIth century parisian tarot decks back.

Thank you also about your feeling onn the visible deck images, I'm always a bit reluctant to show the whole deck because I personnally feel that the pleasure in buying a deck is discovering it in its entirety. On the other hand I can understand the frustration of not seeing it all. I particularly enjoy the fact that you're posting a card that you like.

Garmonbozia > yes the price was raised to reflect the prices available on my website, and because of all the troubes there was recently around the "Original Lenormand" and the Game Crafter (apparently bad copies were produced due to TGC who tried to put the blame on the designer, who is definitely not the source of these bad copies), I'm starting to think seriously to stop selling anything through their platform, but in the meantime as I don't have enough stocks of this deck I just initiated the move by changing the price.

Regarding my own Palimpsest Lenormand decks, I noticed (as I watched my stats and wasn't informed by TGC so this could have stayed unnoticed) that one of the decks sold on TGC has been refunded, so maybe they also told the customer that the bad quality of their printing was my fault, which I'm certain is NOT the case. I didn't had the time to put a warning on my website (I'm a bit busy with the Triomphes MMXII right now) but I will do ASAP, and already disabled the sales of my mini triomphes de paris on the TGC website.

Now there shouldn't be such problems with this deck as the backs are designed with a repetitive pattern, so the centering is less an issue.

So in the end either there'll be enough demand for it, and I'll order my own stock that I'll check myself (so it won't be to my customers to have to deal with TGC) either this deck will soon be discontinued - what is sure is, although I may use their printing services, I'll certainly won't be selling new decks through their platform.

That being said, if there are for instance a group of 10 members on AT willing to buy this deck and willing to avoid TGC troubles, I could do a discounted group price based on the previous price on TGC plus individual shipping costs. You'd have to wait a bit for me to receive the decks and check them but this way you won't have to worry about TGC.
 

garmonbozia

I'd definitely be interested in ordering a discounted copy in a group order.

I noticed that the Original Lenormand had been placed on "not for sale" status and was curious as to why. Is there discussion of this some place? I was interested in this deck, but the price is ridiculous, especially without even a tuck box. $45 plus shipping for 38 print-on-demand cards that you'd get in a plastic bag? obscene.

These recent problems with Game Crafter are unfortunate. What is going on over there?