Deck of knowledge (La baraja del conocimiento).

 

This project consisted of selecting and illustrating four quotes from artists, from any discipline or period, without limitations on style, format, etc. I decided to create a deck of A6-sized prints depicting proverbs my grandmother used. She always said many, and when she was in the final stages of Alzheimer's, she remembered a few things, but these phrases always came to mind. This was an academic assignment for the Creativity and personal style module within LABASAD’s MA on Publicity and Editorial Illustration.

 

My roommate, a wonderful art historian, told me this reminded her of Moral Emblems a text by Sebastián de Covarrubias. The themes covered in Sebastián's emblems are related to vanity, vices, death, time, etc. Although there are also numerous practical emblems that offer advice on children, marriage, work, and so on.

 

The combination of my initial idea and the research I did on Moral Emblems results in the final project: a series of A6-sized prints that compile popular proverbs, categorized into four groups.The final set is called "The Knowledge Deck," which is divided into four suits, each represented by four colors:

 

Green - learning (grasping knowledge)

Purple - criticism (acquiring knowledge through it)

Tile - warning (guiding us toward knowledge through it)

Yellow - knowledge (inheriting knowledge from folk wisdom received through everyday observation)

 

You can find here the initial sketches done for the module, and only one fully developed as an example (I am now working on all of them as a personal project):

 

those who does not know God pray to any saint.