That's better

Just managed to get the I AM pictures in this post to show big when you click on them. Not sure what was wrong before.

I AM illustrations

Realised I hadn't posted this yet. Finished a week ago. Jesus' last three I AM sayings. (resurrection & life, way/truth/life, vine)

It was nice to illustrate some stories I've never done or seen in Go Teach before. I thought they explained complex ideas like 'abiding in Jesus' well. And we've never had a lesson that focusses so much on heaven before (plenty on how to get there, but not on why you would want to!). Although it's based on John 14, it also gets into Rev 21 themes.

Though with the current situation, when they'll actually get used is another question...

I tried to use complementary colours as I did last time, but I feel it was less successful - possibly because there aren't borders to bring out the colours. And I was doing it in rather a rush (partly my fault, partly not).

For your amusement, this is the original 'rough' I sent them, just to give an idea of content. A cobbled together mixture of my old illustrations in various styles, googled images, and clipart!

Latest illustrations

Finally got these illustrations finished!

I'm really happy with them - not just "well, it'll do", as I feel some of my recent work has been. (Though of course I can still see bits where it could have been better). It's good to try new things.

click to see big

I took the time to shade them - not a lot of time, but makes a big difference.

My new 'inking' technique really worked well - I'll do that again. It completely missed out the middle step - so I went straight from the rough roughs below to final linework.

Not just quicker, but also gives a livelier effect. And since pencil's a more forgiving medium than ink, easier to get a decent result 😀

So the time constraint was a blessing in disguise, as otherwise I would just have done what I usually do.

I tried to hold each story together with a colour scheme - not something I usually do, but I thought I'd try it. Each lesson has two complementary colours, which I've tried to use quite a lot in the picture (not so bright, though!).

And, to finish it off, I added an overlay of one of the colours over the foreground and the other colour over the background. Tbh, I'm not sure how this works, but it subtly changes the colours and helps to separate foreground and background.

how I did it

showing the difference: foreground redder, background cyan-er

More illustrations

Just finished these illustrations this week for Go Teach.

Top story is Jesus healing the demon-possessed girl (which is an incredibly difficult story for children - and adults for that matter. But I just had to draw it, not teach it!) Bottom story is Jesus bringing Jairus's daughter back to life.

The last two pictures are closely based on ones I did for my own PowerPoint. But a very different style, to fit with others in the series!

I really like the hands in this.

And finally, a set of illustrations for the 2nd commandment (no idols), based on Psalm 115.
If you think these don't look like my illustrations, that's because they had to fit into a set done by a previous illustrator, so I tried to fake his style.

The first picture is the writer of the Psalm. I wanted him to look like he was trying out ideas while writing his song, and I immediately thought of this album cover:

Only I've swapped out the guitar with a lute, which actually was an instrument at the time, though looks familiar enough to kids not to need explanation.

The last one, with the body parts, was actually the hardest to draw! That, and finding idols to draw that weren't nude or otherwise inappropriate :-)

Nicodemus illustrations

Just finished these today. There was extra space, so I was able to add some icons to represent Jesus' metaphors in both this lesson and the next. Hopefully this will help! (The sun & moon were an extra because I'd still not filled my space.)

Assumptions

I'm working on some commissioned illustrations about Nicodemus, to match with some previous illustrations I did of the woman at the well.

As always, apologies for paranoid watermarking - I do this when posting commissioned work to protect my clients' rights.

Interestingly, both stories mention the time of day the person spoke to Jesus - Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night; the woman met Jesus when she went to the well around midday. I might reflect this in the colours of the borders.

We are often told - as a fact - that Nicodemus came at night because he was worried that others would see him during the day, and that the woman came to the well at midday because she was a social outcast as a result of her immoral behaviour*, and she knew no-one else would be around at that time.

Maybe.

Or maybe Nicodemus was extremely busy during the day, and he came at the first opportunity he had. Maybe the woman had accidentally spilt the water she had already gathered at the normal time, and this was an unscheduled emergency trip.

Maybe.

The point is we don't know, and any suggested reasons - however plausible - should be clearly pointed out as speculation, and definitely not used to make important points.

---

*It's also assumed that she had been divorced 5 times. But maybe she had been widowed 5 times (or a mixture).

Fruit II

Last week I posted about my problems illustrating the parable of the sower.

We knew we wanted several different scenarios in the picture. But it was so tiny.

It took a looooong time to figure out how to do this - but then it suddenly came to me and was fairly easy to draw.

Here's the result:

Apologies for paranoid watermarking :-)
I like to be very careful when posting artwork I have done for other publishers.

3D model in Clip Studio

Just used the Clip Studio 3D figure model for the first time. Looks like it'll be useful!

Elisha

What I've been working on.

Took rather more time than I'd budgetted, and there's so much more that I could do, but I needed to stop and call them finished.

I don't usually do shading, but I felt that with dark scenes inside tents, sunrises etc, it would really help. Probably bit off a bit more than I could chew, but I do feel it's heading in the direction I was aiming at, though it didn't quite get there!

Click to see big

Baby Moses

I really like drawing pictures like this:

But sometimes it is nice to draw things like this:

For Go Teach Toddlers Book 6

Click to see big.
That jewellery was fun to do!

Colour matters

I was telling this story on Sunday,  and I was using the Go Teach visual aids, which I drew.

It was quite a tricky picture to make clear. The point of the story is that it's such a dense crowd that no-one notices the lady creeping up to touch Jesus' cloak. But, of course, while the picture has to look confusing and busy, the children in the class do have to see what's going on.

One of the ways I did this was to use colour. Colour is not just decoration. It can be used for clarity and emphasis, and for atmosphere. In this case, clarity was the main issue.

Here's what I did to make Jesus and the woman stand out:

• Jesus and the women are dressed in strong colours: the other characters are in paler, muted colours.

• Jesus and the woman are in reddish shades: most - though not all - of the others are in blue/green shades which stand out less.*

• Jesus and the woman are the only ones with jet black hair: everyone else's is paler. Light hair is possible in the middle east - in real life it would not be this common, especially among adults, however that's what you call artist's license.

• Each individual person does not have much contrast in their clothes - the patterns on the clothes are a similar colour to the clothes themselves (more artist's license - in real life the stripes were quite strong). Also, the woman's shawl and dress are of a similar colour to each other, as are Jesus' cloak and tunic. This holds each person together as one object instead of breaking them up. That's the opposite of the principles behind camouflage, which is designed to break up the person's shape to make them stand out less.

• I've also used aerial perspective - making things in the distance (and their outlines) paler, so they recede.

Just for fun, I made another version of this picture, using colours to make the picture harder to understand. Here it is:

• Everyone is dressed in strong colours.

• Jesus and the woman are in blue/green shades which stand out less: random unimportant people are in bright reds or yellows

• Jesus' hair is brown, like most of the others, and the woman's hair is pale grey: but several unimportant characters have jet black hair.

• Individual people have quite a lot of contrast in their clothes. The woman does not, but she is coloured so that her sleeve is a similar colour to the girl behind her, and her hand is a similar colour to the man behind it. This means that they blend into the background.

• I've used no aerial perspective, so the background is more prominent.

And here's a comparison - it flicks from one to the other:

Half shut your eyes - in which picture can you see at a glance who the main characters are and what's going on?


Of course, all of this is subconscious as far as the viewer is concerned. You don't analyse the colours - you just look at the picture. But it's important, because it makes such a difference to your understanding.


Actually, this post happens to fit really well with the quote I posted on Saturday. That was by a colourist - someone who makes his living by colouring other people's pictures (much more complicated colouring than I do!).

*Unless you have red/green colourblindness - sorry :-)

Final artwork

Thought you might like to see the final artwork.
(Apologies for paranoid copyrighting, but when it's for someone else I feel I really really need to be careful)

I'm pleased with the mum's 'sari' here, though I spent way way way too long researching sari drapery (with little result) and those shawl things people carry their babies in. I don't even know if they did in those days, but the drapery looked suitable. 

Now that's where flowing clothes are useful - the mum's skirt hides the dad's legs!

That low view was HARD. But I felt it was needed to a) give an intimidating feel, and b) have a view which made the small children take up enough of the picture space.

I'm pleased with Jesus' cloak here. And the cute baby (got him from a photo).

Change of story here! I'm particularly pleased with the young guy on the right. I got the pose from a photo, but I draped the tunic out of my head.

I really need to practise drawing people, though. Then I wouldn't find this kind of more realistic drawing so difficult.

The good thing about drawing dinosaurs

You can do them any colour you like to fit in with your compostion.

Apparently, however, they do know what colour some prehistoric birds are, because they can do tests on the chemicals in the fossilised feathers (or something).

RUN the RACE

Just got my sample copies this morning. I'm very pleased with it. A few minor anomalies, but, as they say, only Allah is perfect ;-) *

 

The Visual Aids posters are A3, folded into a non-stapled A4 book for ease of distribution.

They were drawn by Jo Le Prevost and coloured by me. First time I've tried cel shading (hard-edged shading in computer colouring). This page was extremely helpful, as I have no idea what I'm doing really. I also used lighting a lot more atmospherically than I do usually - I want to learn more about this. The internet is a great place, full of people sharing their 'how to' secrets.

Order through your local Christian bookshop if you're fortunate enough to still have one, or buy direct from Go Teach.

*Btw, 'Allah' is the Arabic word for God, and used by arabic Christians too. It's not specific to Islam. Just in case you were thinking of complaining...

Reference material

Amazing what a difference reference material makes.

My attempt at a picture of arm wrestling, out of my head:

After I Googled it:

Easier to draw, infinitely more convincing!

The studio progresses...

A bit of DIY (with a little help from Ikea):

Now I just need to transport all the books and files...

I couldn't do this when I was working at home:

I actually drew these as 2 inch thumbnails, but printed them out A4 to see how they'll look. Quite a good idea actually - forces you to be simple, which they'll need to be, due to lack of time. I won't actually be drawing these - I'm just commissioning them for the Holiday Club I'm designing.

I have also met a couple of people in my corridor - in fact, the lady who has just moved in next door and I spent a couple of hours cleaning the kitchen! We don't think many people had been using it, and it was a wee bit untidy and grubby.

Coming soon...

Seeing your work in action

We're doing Esther in Sunday School. Happened to be my illustrations for this series.

  
Esther is taken to see the king.
Fiona: She put on beautiful robes. (She adds the robes to the figure)
6 yr old girl: Ewwww :-(
Another girl: Why's she wearing blue?*
Fiona points out that blue was quite expensive in those days, and I add that it says somewhere in the book of Esther that blue & white were royal colours. We then have comments about "why does the king have flowers on his clothes?", some query about the pattern on the walls, and "I didn't know men could wear purple."

Pearls before swine... :-)

It's fun having your work critted (is that a word?) by people who didn't know it's your work!

Actually, using the materials myself is so useful. You get to see what works and what doesn't (like the 10 leper finger puppets, which seemed a great idea, until I tried using them while turning pages in my notes and holding up flashcards...). And what puzzles children - three times in the last few weeks they've been convinced male characters (not my pics) who had slightly long hair and no beards were female.

Those are the crits that really matter - adults' opinion is all very well, but it's how the children see them that's important.

* Actually, the reason I did them blue was because that's the natural bkg for stars. And her clothes have stars on them because "Esther" is Persian for "star". But I didn't think I needed to get into that!