The Fool

This was one of the designs I submitted for Jordan Peterson’s call for illustrators for his upcoming book “Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life.” 

The challenge asked applicants to create their own version of The Fool card in the  Rider-Waite Tarot deck. My design kept the medieval/fantasy theme from the Tarot deck, but it deviates from a traditional design by using a more dynamic composition. I decided to add two characters to make the scene easier to associate with the title of the chapter: “Do Nor Carelessly Denigrate Social Institutions or Creative Achievement.” 

The character up in the tower is a conservative type, who rejects the Fool for deviating from the established path. The character laying in the pond ia liberal type who mocks the Fool for attempting to take part in society at all. There is also a cricket standing in as the Fool's guardian and a butterfly representing the Fool's naively idealistic concept of the world, the reason why he might fall off the cliff.