Have you ever wonder where stone witches came from ? Or what are the plan for the future ? This post is for you !
Stone witches is my personal illustration project where I explore ways to symbolically represent stones and their properties. It is also an opportunity for me, as a geologist, to share my knowledge of rocks and minerals. For each piece of art, I complement my existing knowledge with additional investigation and attempt to highlight interesting facts about the stones. In the end, each piece of art comes with some scientific vulgarization, briefly introducing each stone. You can discover all of their art on my website.
From initial doodle to first art
Everything started with a doodle one day, just a silly idea : a small family all composed of stones, based on a well known stone evolution family in geology : basalt formed at the oceanic mid-range that progressively turn in green-schist due to water alteration, before going deeper at subduction trench (where on plate goes under another one) and there turn in blue-schist first and eclogite at the really end due to pressure and deshydration. So I imaginated this small family from that, with really basic designs
A couple month later, during the last day of my master degree, I wanted to revisit this initial idea and started to daydream about it but there was a conflict in my head between doing a beautiful woman playing with lava and one fully made of lava - both idea at first based on basalt. I ended doing both, one for basalt and one for eclogite.
There was born the two first stone witches !
'In the deepest depths of the earth, something
awakens. A gentle warmth rising up from cracks
in the sleeping rock, roaring with impatience.'
Back there they had no names, no precise ideas of where I was going or even if I was going to do more. They were just cool 'stone girls'. Basalt was quite straight forward : A cool woman made of lava, but showcasing different form of it, and with some olivine gems. Eclogite comes naturally out of the second idea, and was somehow my best art from 2022.
And a series began...
Stone girls were born but I had no idea it would goes so far. A month later or so, a dear friend asked me if I could do an amethyst (his favorite stone) girl. I jumped onto the opportunity and created geode, based on the idea of a hidden amethyst geode in some random pebble.
'In her lonely jail she has grown, embellished herself,
and dressed the walls in a thousand glittering
jewels.'
At this point I began to thought and talk about it as an actual series (of three art, but it looked like something I wanted to push and elaborate on). So I created some more in the following months : greenschist, evaporite, limestone for mermay and blueschist. I started incorporating a bit more geological element but kept it quite straight forward once I get my first idea.
'A thought crosses her mind: How long will she remain
the Ocean Princess? How many birth and death will she
witness before she sinks into the depths awaiting her?'
'She hesitates for a second, shaking, trying to
resist, but suddenly gives up.
She falls over and over, sinking into the
unknown'
At this time, I created labradorite too. She was drawn for another friend (and is her favorite stone). My close group of friend really supported me a lot trough this whole adventure and are the godmothers and godfathers of this project! I drew another custom witch for this friend later on : Olivine
'As the sun rises, a light beam softly caresses her,
bouncing on her veil, on her jewels, in a
shimmering rainbow.'
Toward more geology in my art
During the fall 2023 I had the opportunity to go regularly at Mines Paris mineralogy museum, this gave me the opportunity to life study minerals and to spend hours wandering in between showcases finding ideas. Granite was the one who takes the longest because from the initial idea I past hours searching forcool stones and drawing from them. It was the first one I really linked to a real area (the granite from North West France).
Closely following, comes Turbidite, the last one of the first series. I wanted her to be linked to the Fezzouata outcrop, in the Sahara, so I've done her with the helps of two friends, making sure her clothes where in accordance with south of Maroc and Algeria traditions. It was also a fun opportunity to include some extinct animal, and technically my first anomalocaris drawing (anomalocaris is my favorite fossils and quite a mascot for me)
'She turns and dances, run and whirls, dragging in
her wake memories of distant mountains, dragging
water, dragging life.'
An art zine !
During Fall 2023 the idea of a turning the stone girls into a printed zine becomes more and more an actual project and I started writing the text. I had a bit of trouble to figure how to articulate science and art but friends helped me find the right way ! It would never have seen the light of day without my incredible friend Nadg, who is doing the proofreading and layout, and is even helping me with some artistic decisions!
It took some month of planning, but in early 2024 the kickstarter was there ! And it was a success ! In 5 days the project was funded and it ended up at 150 % allowing me to print 100 copy of the zine, a big success for my first publication project !
As we reached a bonus milestone, the participants of the Kickstarter chose a stone I illustrated as a wallpaper for them. They chose the pallasite, a cool meteorite. This art was also a good opportunity to explore more styles and quite a transition process wise between the first and the second stone witch series.
One month, after, in March 2024, the zine was there ! I was so happy to be see it printed along with the other rewards !
There was even a signing event at the mineralogy museum !
Now, two years later,all the book I printed are sold ! Between the physicals and the digital copy more than 100 copy of stone witches has been distributed ! That's a huge success for a first project and I am deeply grateful to all the contributors, and all the friend that helped me trough the process.
So is it the end ? No !
A new start !
Four month after the kickstarter (some rest was needed !) I was back at creating stone witches ! At first I stayed quiet about the idea behind it but now that I already have done 21 witches out the 37 I planned for this series, so I think I can speak about it !
Some friends suggested me to do a card deck with this concept, first I just took it as an idea and go forward without stopping at it. But the idea stuck somewhere in my brain and I was wondering 'what if ?'. It would be a giant amount of work (and well I am still at it two years later), but it would be so cool too. So I've done a list trying to see which stones I could draw and if it could match with a tarot inspired deck and so.... yes !
So here I am, pursuing the crazy idea of doing a whole stone witches tarot deck ! I am done with the 16 face cards, each group of four linked to a different mineral family (sulfurs, carbonate, silicates and oxides) and I am currently working on the 21 trumps.
For these I decided to only use minerals, and to focus more on geology and industrial use of the different minerals.
Figuring out a style
Going for a 37 fully illustrated cards project meant I had to do something more efficient than a fully painted illustration which took me 15-30 hours each. I decided so to go for a lineart based style but it required some explorations on changed during I was working on the series. Do I do more or less lineart ? More. How do I render the background ? Not that much. How much abstractness do I want ? The eternal struggle Is adding pure white a good idea ? Probably no. I speak more of my lineart evolution in this blog post.
Sulfurs, the first four, where a lot of exploring. It set up the idea of having a color theme trough each group of four, and a common asset too, for them the spear.
Carbonates changed a bit the direction but set up what would be the base construction of my current lineart style, even if I would have now approach the background differently. Obviously working on such a long art series (that will run trough four years probably) means I will have to redraw some of the olders art at the end. But I love to look at it like 'wips' rather than finals, as by the times I will have finished all the cards, I will have progressed and my style will have evolved and so be ok with the idea of a huge final rework to do.
Going forward I lost a bit the idea of a common asset for all and a strong common palette so that's something i will have to think more about in the future.
Since early 2025 I have a regular rhythm of one witch per month, apart a couple exceptions, allowing the project to progress steadily.
And now
I am currently working on the trumps, which is somehow quite freeing compared to the precedents artworks, as I have less common constraint between two artworks. It was also the opportunity for me to introduce a new symbolic direction in it, trying to linked each card to an aspect of femininity and to introduce more political messages in some. I want stone witches to be something I am happy off and that reflect my convictions.
If I achieve to keep the rhythm in the future the deck will be done at the end of 2027 ! So bear with me, this project is getting somewhere ! I also plan to start revealing the poems and text associated with the second series at the end of the summer so keep an eye on this !
Thank you for your reading ! Don't hesitate to subscribe to the blog update to be informed first of the next posts !