Acrylic Illustration: Create a Magical Universe

Start the course by getting to know Adolfo Serra, who tells you about his professional experience as an illustrator, artist, and teacher. He shows you some of his latest work and explains how he approached each project. Adolfo also shares his biggest artistic influences and highlights some that you might find particularly interesting or inspiring.

Set the stage with a brief overview of art history to help you understand the concept of magical thought and study its influence on Greek and Roman mythology, monsters from the Middle Ages, surrealism, and finally tarot cards. Examine different reinterpretations of major arcana throughout the years and choose three to use as reference pieces for your project. Adolfo then walks you through his artistic process for illustrating concepts or symbols and shows you some tricks to help you visualize your ideas and stimulate creative thinking.

Open your mind and dive into the magical world of acrylic paint. Learn about basic materials and concepts for painting with acrylics and practice using different brushes. Move on to more advanced concepts and discover how acrylics behave with more or less water, see the different textures and lines you can create, and even how to combine it with other types of paint. Continue to explore and experiment with different techniques like glaze, frottage, gradients, dry brush, and stencils.

Adolfo introduces you to some alternative uses for acrylic paint such as stamping and monoprinting. Play around with acrylic markers and other unconventional materials like sand or a comb to create different textures, patterns, and effects. Then, work on an exercise with automatic drawing to help you approach your tarot designs from a different angle.

Now it's time to work on your project. Create a set of sketches of your major arcana and choose a color palette. Continue to shape and define your work following Adolfo’s illustration process and apply the techniques you’ve learned to give your art a touch of magic. Follow these steps and you can create your own full deck of tarot cards!