Ostara tarot

Art Style & Visual Character

The four artists each bring their own distinctive styles that are nonetheless harmonious and complementary. Julia Iredale's Wands feature delicate line work and glowing natural colors, particularly ambers and forest greens. Krista Gibbard's Swords are dominated by particular colors — mossy green, parchment brown, dusty rose, and faded turquoise. The overall aesthetic explores wilderness, surrealism, and feminine intuition, with a little surrealism woven throughout. Each Minor Arcana card also features an animal attached to it, with the four of each suit displaying a rabbit in some way. The art is lush, dreamlike, and nature-saturated.

Core Concept & Symbolism

The primary themes are wilderness, surrealism, and feminine intuition, with traditional tarot symbolism as the foundation. The deck uses the natural world as its symbolic language — animals, plants, landscapes, and organic forms carry the card meanings. While rooted in the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition, the imagery often departs into more abstract, surreal territory, encouraging intuitive rather than strictly symbolic reading. The stylistic differences between suits actually aid in recognizing the symbolic differences between the four elements.

Reading Experience

Benebell Wen calls it "a beautiful deck for year-round use." Jack Chanek's review notes it is "one of those rare tarot decks that is absolutely flawless in its execution and breathtaking in its beauty." The deck is described as really gentle and largely beginner-friendly for intuitive readers, though those working strictly from standard Tarot book meanings may find it difficult. Some reviewers note that fresh-out-of-the-box cards can have sticky-card issues from metallic edges. The deck is especially praised for intermediate to advanced readers who want to push their relationship with the cards, or for intuitive readers who rely exclusively on visual cues.

Best Used For

• Intuitive readers who work from visual cues rather than memorized meanings
• Nature-based and earth-centered spiritual practices
• Intermediate to advanced readers seeking to deepen their practice
• Feminine and goddess-oriented spirituality
• Meditation on wilderness, animals, and the natural world
• Art lovers who appreciate collaborative, multi-artist projects

Not Ideal For

• Strict beginners learning from standard tarot meaning books
• Readers who prefer uniform, single-artist visual consistency
• Those who need clear, recognizable RWS-based scenes on every card