The original illustrations of The Tarot House Deck were created by Patricia B House in 2008. Each of the 78 images started as a pencil drawing which was outlined in black ink and then hand painted in coloured acrylics. Each of the originals are on A4 sized acrylic paper.
The deck was self-published and printed in the United Kingdom in 2011 by Cartamundi, a renowned card printing company recognised world wide.
The aim of the deck was to simplify tarot images in order to make them less esoteric and more accessible to those who found it hard to memorise symbolism. Whilst the deck echoes general meanings and nuances portrayed in other tarot decks such as the Rider-Waite-Smith, it was designed to be used more flexibly and the Major Arcana are not numbered in the traditional way.
The Major Arcana
The 22 Major Arcana cards are painted with a fantasy renaissance feel to the figures which makes full use of the colour spectrum but there is little else to pin the cards to any particular era, or belief system, which gives them a timeless feel. There is a slight deference to symbolism in order to make clear the story that each card is telling but it is kept to the minimum.
The Minor Arcana
The Minor Arcana have been designed to make clear the numbers of the first 10 cards in each suit, and the Court Cards follow the traditional Page, Knight, Queen and King order. The Court Cards are portrayed with simple scenes involving figures for the human aspect of the cards. The numbered pip cards are semi-scenic in that they indicate the mood of the card in the image – for example the 10 of Cups shows a tree in full blossom on a calm sea representing positivity, whereas the 5 of Cups shows a tree devoid of foliage, on a stormy sea, and a cup has fallen into the water, which indicates a difficult situation – but they do not have a full blown scene with figures.