The Fool – how to depict a free and feckless feline?
The Fool is one of those cards that everyone has an opinion about. In the Rider Waite Smith (RWS) Tarot, he is shown as someone smiling blithely as he steps off a cliff. He (or indeed, she) is reckless, in some ways thoughtless, and yet…
Black cats for great luck? Some people think so.
Black cats have an undeserved bad reputation and have the hardest time of any color of cat in getting adopted from shelters. Yet almost two dozen cat breeds come in an all-black variety, with the Bombay cat coming only in black, so it seems some…
A happy harmony – a Temperance card to love.
The Temperance card, appropriately enough, isn’t one that tends to be particularly spectacular or attention-grabbing. It seems to us that few people would describe it as one of their favourite Major cards (The Star, The Fool and The Devil would all generally have more fans),…
A remarkable animal illustrator, now sadly forgotten
As with almost all genres of art, the contributions of women have usually been overshadowed by their male colleagues. One woman who produced wonderfully stylish dressed-up cats – and other animals – in humorous scenes is Austrian writer and animal illustrator Käthe Olshausen-Schönberger. She is…
The amazing history of Puss in Boots, beloved for centuries.
When it comes to cats donning costumes, one feline–the splendid Puss in Boots –stands head and front paws above the rest. The birth of printing in the mid 15th century meant that illustrated stories became easily available to the average person, and fairytales very soon…
Slow but sure on his hobbyhorse. The cautious Knight.
Some people find the Knight of Pentacles (or Knight of Coins as he was known prior to the Rider Waite Smith “RWS” system of Tarot) slightly boring. Compared to the dynamic Knights of the other three tarot suits, he can certainly seem less exciting. However, we…
Bastet, the Egyptian cat goddess in a dancing dress.
Cats are little gods and goddesses, and humans are lucky to be allowed to live with them — regardless of the fact that cats are quite remiss in making house payments. While others had already used lions as divine symbols, the Egyptians were the first…
Making an inspiring Hermit – shining a light in the forest.
For The Hermit card in the new Bohemian Cats’ Theatre Tarot, we wanted quite a spectacular look. Sometimes this card can be, in visual terms, a bit predictable so we wanted to add richness and also enhance the meaning for our rather distinctive cat tarot.…
Aiming for an amazing Two of Pentacles – a hopeful harlequin juggler.
The Two of Pentacles is is a tarot card that we always enjoy designing because there are so many possibilities for conveying the broad idea of juggling a lot of things at once! We knew almost immediately that we wanted to show a cat in…
Cats predictably make a startling mark in Japanese prints.
It would be surprising if Japan didn’t have a tradition of dressed up cats doing human things. The island nation does not disappoint, especially when it comes to Japanese prints. Cats seem to have first come on trading ships from China about a thousand years…
How to made a Baroque theatre – for cats! Part 2
It's not every day that a carpenter is asked to create a mini Baroque theatre for cats! It was a challenge that Dirk took on with enthusiasm - here he explains how he worked with Karen and Alex to make the perfect setting for The…
Because the first step is working out how to make a Baroque theatre…
This video explains how Karen and Alex made the decision to use a theatre setting for the new Bohemian Cats project, drawing inspiration from previous images they had created (as well as from a vivid dream Alex had!). When it came to making this vision…
Mainzer dressed cats began as whimsical but odd postcards
Cats dressed up and behaving like people have long been on the fringes of pop culture. In the 1940s and ’50s, Mainzer Dressed Cat postcards hit the scene, showing felines in then-contemporary costumes riotously pursuing leisure activities from sports to watching movies, or simply having picnics.…
A scary feline – it’s the Cat Devil puppeteer.
We wanted this Cat Devil card for The Bohemian Cats’ Theatre Tarot to be full of symbolism and with a depth of meaning. After much thought, we turned to a very old table-top theatre that we bought from Austria, and two Czech puppets from Antonín Münzberg, a good,…
Anthropomorphic felines: our love of cat stories.
The Bohemian Cats images that we are currently making at BabaBarock are a new approach to the very old tradition of anthropomorphic felines. Today, we think nothing of seeing a cat dressed up, walking on hind legs and talking. They can be seen in animated films, cartoons,…
The Bohemian Cats’ Theatre project – new beginnings
The original Baroque Bohemian Cats’ Tarot and the Bohemian Cats picture book date all the way back to 2003/4 and has been through several versions since. We’ve always loved living with cats and it came naturally to us to build to make an entire fantasy…
