Showing posts with label Kim Krans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kim Krans. Show all posts

The Wild Unknown Journal by Kim Krans (2018)

, 16 Oct 2022

I was super excited to get this art journal as I love Krans' tarot imagery and artwork. The excitement lasted while I browsed the book, but then, when the reality of the journal quality sank in, I felt equally disappointed. 
 
EXCITED
> The whole journal design, colour scheme and Krans' artwork are very much of my liking.
> This a great practice journal to get your creativity started, flourished or regained. You can use the journal to write, paint or collage, or all of them, whatever you want.
> I see this journal as suitable for children and beginner artists.
> The cover image (an eye in the centre of the labyrinth) really resonates with me because the creative process is just an insight into a soulful labyrinthine path that expresses itself through our eyes, psyche, and hands.
> Great hard-cover binding. The journal can be fully opened without you feeling that the pages are going to come off at the turn of the page. Besides, the hard cover makes the journal more elegant and durable.
> White-page fear no more.
> I can use some of the pages in the book as collage paper into my artwork.

 

DISAPPOINTED
 > The journal is intimidating, in a way, as the author's artwork is already done, and, in my case, I feel like a frog beside a princess.
> The paper is not especially good for anything liquid or inky unless you apply translucent/white gesso primer beforehand. Pencils are OK. Oil pastels need of a fixative as they don't hold well onto this paper surface.  
> I don't find that prompts help me create anything meaningful to me. In that regard, to me, the journal is more a level-up colouring book than a journal.  
> The hieroglyphs (decipher exercises) in the book, which I find delightful, are wrongly done. If you create a symbol and give them an equivalent letter, as Krans does, you then transcribe any text following this system. However, that's not the case here; if you use the same equivalents you won't be able to transcribe some of the texts because the same symbols are given different equivalents in different pages.  
> No ribbon bookmark. How could the editor forget that?! 
 

OVERALL
I Love Krans' introduction and artwork, but the bad quality paper and the simplistic prompts do not help me create on this book. However, I owe to this journal the rekindling of my artistic pursuits on proper paper surfaces and with my own intuition as prompt. I will be using some of the pages to transfer images into my artwork or to incorporate them into my own artwork or just as an inspiration. 
 


 

 

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The Wild Unknown Pocket Tarot by Kim Krans

, 31 Oct 2021

The Wild Unknown Tarot pocket size in a tin, is just a great good quality deck. 
 
This tarot deck has Kim Krans unique unmistakable atmospheric illustration style, which is immediately recognizable because of the simplicity of the elements, abstract predominantly B&W imagery with splashes of bright colors. The imagery relates to the natural world, the woods and the animals that populate it. This is a night-time-vibe Tarot, as the night scenes dominate most of the images and, overall, it has a strong night energy.
 
Beyond the imagery, there are other things that I like about this deck: 
> The sizing is fantastic, really good for people with small hands. 
> The cards shuffle and fly off beautifully and the deck is not heavy at all. 
> The tin design is just fabulous.
> The major arcana, aces and court cards are really beautiful, but the deck, overall, is just artistically congruent and fabulous. I also love the snake-skin card back. 
 

ON THE FLIP SIDE
> The card stock is a bit flimsy.
> The booklet is mass produced, bound too tightly and using bad quality paper. 
> Some of the imagery used for the minor arcana seemed too abstract. 
> Despite the fact that I admire this deck, I cannot connect with it. Said differently, I love the artwork, but it doesn't work for me. I find it too dark in mood and lacking warmth. 
> Not a deck for beginners. 
> Not an intuitive deck.  
 
I actually returned the deck to the seller, because although I loved the artwork, I thought I would not use this deck and would sit on my shelves untouched. 

MIND
The deck follows the structure of the RSWT but the court cards are daughters (pages), sons (knights), mothers (queens) and fathers (kings).


 

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