Prayer category cards

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CEF Europe is producing small cards that can be used to print prayer requests on the reverse side and encourage children with their daily prayer time.
There are 16 categories that will be reduced to fit eight per A4 page.  The CEF national offices will be able to run the A4 pages through a copier or office printer to add prayer reminders on the reverse side.  This way the text can be customized to their need, in their language and updated easily without the need to print large quantities.  The cards will be cut out and given to the children through the Good News Clubs®, etc..

The three cards to the left cover the categories:
• food (top)
• missionary work - evangelistic (middle)
• home and shelter (bottom)

Tech notes: I photographed the children and masked out the background in Photoshop.  The vector line drawings were done in Adobe Illustrator.

Video for CMLC

This past weekend, I completed work on a video that will be used to help promote the Children's Ministry Leadership Course (CMLC) held at "Kilchzimmer".  The course is also held in other locations around Europe – Russia, Georgia, Balkans, Ukraine, etc.. For the video, we interviewed four students from the summer 3-month course.  An interview approach to a promo video seems to work well and involves far less production time.

Students attended the summer course from across Europe.  For example, one couple came from the Faroe Islands (located between Scotland and Iceland) and are preparing to head up a children's camp in Greenland.  As you'll notice in the video, while the summer course is held in English, many of the students have English as a second language and will be returning home to reach the children in their country and language. 

The 3-month Autumn course at Kilchzimmer is going on now in German and English.  There are plans to create a similar promotional video in German, interviewing several German speaking students.  This also avoids the need for translation or sub-titles.

More info on the CMLC in Europe: www.cefeurope.com/training

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Tech Notes: All video was shot using a Nikon D7000 (DSLR).  Edited in Adobe Premiere (CS4) and "questions" created in  Adobe After Effects (CS4).

Kilchzimmer projects - photo challenge

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In CEF we usually need photos of children or CEF ministries.  Wires, circuit boards and pipes are not normally on my list of subjects to photograph.  Kilchzimmer is raising finances for three urgent needs and will be including an insert with the Kilchzimmer newsletter.  Projects include a vehicle, regulators for the heating system and a new phone system.  

My photo challenge was to make an old dusty telephone circuit board of wires and switches not only semi-recognizable but also visually interesting.  The heating system with it's regulators and control units had a few more photographic possibilities.

I needed to keep the photos true and accurate so Photoshoping smoke, sparks, or steam into the images wasn't an option. :-)

The Call of Jeremiah (2, 5)

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This is an illustration for a single lesson (10 illustrations) on The Call of Jeremiah.  The central theme of the lesson is "God has a plan for your life".  This is a younger Jeremiah when God called him.  "I knew you even before you were formed in the womb of your mother; I set you apart to serve me even before you were born.  I have chosen you to be my prophet to the nations."

The image to the left is one of the application pictures.

Excerpt from lesson text:  ".... If you have put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, God gives you a work to do.  He asks you to be His witness – to show and tell to others who He is and what He has done.  We are to be His witnesses where He has placed us – at home, at school, at play...."

The illustrations were drawn in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and digitally painted in Corel Painter X.  [print size: 24x34cm]

Copyright ©2011, CEF Europe.  Do not use pictures without permission. Thank you.

The Call of Jeremiah (6)

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This is a recently completed illustration for a single lesson (10 illustrations) on The Call of Jeremiah.  The central theme of the lesson is "God has a plan for your life".  At Kilchzimmer we have a series of single lessons that come with B/W drawings for making overhead transparencies.  Several of these lessons are now being updated and printed as full-colour flashcard lessons (24x34cm).

For this illustration, I used darker values than usual as I wanted to create more drama and draw attention to his mouth.  The initial idea was to have the background completely dark but, for the children, I added the wall to show Jeremiah in a physical location.  The light hitting the stones on the right may need toning down or reduce detail in the cracks, as it competes a bit for attention away from his face (mouth).  This is the scene where God touched Jeremiah's mouth and gave him the strength he needed to speak to the people.
Thanks to Felix D. for patiently posing for 30 photos, giving me enough references to use elements from several to create this final painting.

The illustration was drawn in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and digitally painted in Corel Painter X and ArtRage Studio.

Copyright ©2011, CEF Europe.  Do not use pictures without permission. Thank you.

The Call of Jeremiah (9)

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The above illustration is for the Call of Jeremiah single Bible lesson (10 pictures).  This is the scene where God gave a warning and showed Jeremiah a boiling pot tilting from the north and explained how an enemy will come from the north and invade the country. (final printed image is 24x34cm)

The illustration was painted entirely in Artrage painting program with minor adjustments made in Photoshop.  If you want to try an excellent paint program I can recommend trying out the free version of Artrage (Artrage 2 starter edition).  I normally would only use Artrage to do quick (2-5 min.) color comps for new illustrations and complete the illustration in Photoshop and Corel Painter.
 
Here is the initial thumbnail sketch.

When working on this illustration I couldn't help but picture a specialty of Switzerland – cheese fondue!  With that in mind, I customized the illustration slightly that our Swiss friends will appreciate.... ;-)

Kilchzimmer staff – Nov 2010

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We were able to get most of the Kilchzimmer staff and volunteers together for a staff photo.

This is rare to have the workers in one place at the same time.  After this photo was taken, some of us rushed off to different meetings and one worker arrived at the airport and just missed the photo.

That's life at Kilchzimmer!

[Sue was another one of the absentees.]

Create an Armenian prison at home

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In the Multimedia department we occasionally get requests for promotional presentations in PowerPoint®.  These presentations are used to share with Christians about CEF projects, ministries and needs within CEF.  These presentations help in the evangelism of children by challenging and informing Christians to pray, financial support is raised for workers and projects, and Believers are encouraged to take an active role in the ministry.

One of the challenges of a presentation is having effective images to go with the written text.  This past week we had a tight deadline to find visuals for several literature projects and testimonies.  We had a few gaps.

We were missing a visual to accompany a testimony of how the CEF Wonder Devotional Book was being distributed to all the inmates at an Armenian women's prison.  There seems to be a shortage of Armenian women's prisons near Kilchzimmer so I quickly set up one ... in our apartment living room!

The one item we did have was an Armenian WDB!  Next step, ask my wife if I could photograph her with messed up hair and harsh, unflattering light.  She was a willing model.  Oops.... I forgot to mention to her that the image might show up on our blog for friends and family to see.  As for the prison cell I had to suggest it with the use of cast shadows.  A bed sheet was draped behind Sue.  I shot the flash through paper strips to cast "bar" shadows on her, which was semi-successful, so I ended up going with option two of creating the prison bar shadows inside Photoshop.

The second photo above was also taken for the presentation.  I bounced flash #1 (hidden behind laptop) off of a white paper on the laptop screen.  Flash #2 filled in behind the boy, making it easy to mask him from the background.  Flash #3 on low power, was at the end of the table to light up the back of the laptop.  The "apple" logo was removed in Photoshop. ;-)
You might recognize the boy from previous projects like the Meet the Author visuals or the cover of the Polish "Wonder Why" booklet.

That's a glimpse into what goes into quickly creating an image for a presentation.  These presentations can be an effective communication tool.

Good News Club® Resource Packs

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Brent Hautle (graphic artist) has been busy working on a new CEF item – Good News Club® resource packs to go along with the entire 5-year GNC® teaching cycle.  This is a big project that involves creating work sheets for children, memory verse visuals, review games, visual aids and other teaching helps to go along with the lesson series being taught.

Sometimes I'm called on to help with an illustration.  This is an illustration of Herod's Temple at the time of Christ and will be used with the CEF series, Life of Christ I.


Copyright ©2010, CEF Europe.  Do not use pictures without permission. Thank you.

The Call of Jeremiah (1)

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This is a recently completed illustration for a single lesson (10 illustrations) on The Call of Jeremiah.  The central theme of the lesson is "God has a plan for your life".

At Kilchzimmer we have a series of single lessons that come with B/W drawings for making overhead transparencies.  Several of these lessons are now being updated and printed as full-colour flashcard lessons (24x34cm).

For this series of illustrations I will try using a limited colour palette for several of the pictures.

The illustration was drawn in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and digitally painted in Corel Painter X.

Copyright ©2010, CEF Europe.  Do not use pictures without permission. Thank you.

Inspiring Art

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I'm sharing this blog entry under our ministry page as it relates to art and influences on my development as an illustrator for CEF.

Brandywine River Museum

While in the States this summer we had the opportunity to visit two art museums.  For the past 15-20 yrs. I've been wanting to get to the Brandywine River Museum (Chadds Ford, PA).  Howard Pyle (often referred to as the father of American Illustration) had an art school in the area and the handful of gifted students coming from this school had a big impact on the course of illustration in America at the turn of the century.  Among those students was N. C. Wyeth (father of Andrew Wyeth).  N.C. Wyeth would be in my top 5 list of artists whose work had an impact on my development as an illustrator.  It was exciting to see the large original oil paintings he did for Treasure Island.  I studied the paintings for a few hours.  Touring his studio was another real treat – seeing all his authentic props for the Treasure Island illustrations, a birch bark indian canoe suspended from the ceiling, viewing his resource/research library on the shelves (no touching!), palette with paint on it left untouched from his last painting, etc..  I can highly recommend a tour of the museum and studio. 

An added surprise was the opportunity to meet a local who posed for one of Andrew Wyeth's paintings (motorcyclist at stop light). We also met Victoria Wyeth who shared many insights about Andrew Wyeth, debunking much of what the "expert" art critics were saying about his work.  Art critics often look for all these deep subtle meanings for every detail in a painting, analyzing it to death, when the artist may have simply loved the effects of light falling on an object or the bull in the field got too close and he had to stop painting!  Sometimes the artist will include extra meaning to an image – for example, NC Wyeth's  book illustration for King Arthur shows a knight blowing a trumpet for a royal proclamation [illustration top right].  NC Wyeth completed this painting on the day his son Andrew was born, announcing his birth. :-)

Bob Jones University Museum & Gallery
The other art museum we visited was on the campus of Bob Jones University.  We toured the museum while taking Heather (3rd yr.) and Sarah (1st yr.) to start school at BJU the end of August.
BJU has the second largest collection of religious art in the world, second only to the Vatican.  Most of the artwork was purchased immediately after WWII when many churches in Europe (especially Italy) were destroyed and they needed the money to repair the churches or had nowhere to put the priceless artwork, etc..  I'm sure they wouldn't mind having them back now!

Of the hundreds of masterpieces, there was one painting that stood out for me.  This is the only painting I've seen from this period in church history that focused on Joseph and brought out the love of a father for his son.  


[St. Joseph and the Christ Child by Carlos Francesco Nuvolone, 1609-1662.]

If you get to BJU at the right time of year try to attend the Living Gallery, when the students create exact duplicates of certain paintings or sculptures in the gallery using actors and having 2D artwork transform and come to life on stage.

You can also read about my visit to the Bern Museum earlier this year marking the 100th anniversary of Albert Anker, another artist near the top of my favorite artists list.

The Promised Saviour (Christmas lesson)

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One of the new literature items we introduced at the CEF European Regional Conference in May was a single lesson, The Promised Saviour.  The lesson had been available before as an overhead projector lesson with black & white line drawings.

This lesson is ideal for a Christmas program such as the one-day Christmas clubs held around Europe.  These seasonal children's meetings have been well attended and often result in long term Good News Clubs® being started in unreached areas.

The artwork was redone and instead of separate images, we combined the entire lesson into one A3 sheet (approx. 16.5"x 11.5").   The left and right column have a fold where, in the lesson intro, the visual opens like a double door revealing the entire page.  There is a larger picture on the backside as part of the lesson intro which includes the wrapped present and ribbon you see on the lesson text cover at left.  The small picture squares are covered ahead of time with pieces of paper and revealed individually as the story is told.

The center panoramic manger scene was designed to be revealed in thirds, showing the family on the left, Bethlehem in the center and the right third panel is revealed when describing the manger and animals.  The images needed to be simple because of the size.  This style was a challenge for me in addition to working out the mechanics for a single sheet visual.

Artwork was created in Adobe Photoshop and individual squares were placed in Adobe InDesign.

CEF European Conference 2010

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As I write this we are nearing the end of another exciting CEF European Regional Conference with 350+ workers attending from around Europe, Russia, and Central Asia [picture 1.].  Nearly all the rooms were filled.  The conference comes every three years and was held this year in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany.  This is a big event that comes every three years and lasts for a week.  There are also other meetings and courses tagged on the end of the conference.  I will stay until Tuesday evening to teach a seminar course in the Instructors of Preschoolers course.

The conference week was full of meetings, seminar classes, fellowship time, Bible teaching by Dr. Rev. Stafford Carson, messages from the president of CEF - Reese Kauffman, and much more.! This is also an important and valuable time to "Network" with workers and country leaders we would not normally get to meet otherwise, organizing and discussing projects for their country.

[picture 2.] This is the main meeting room.  We had excellent facilities at the Schönblick Christian conference center.

[picture 3.] One of the big events of the conference was the passing on of the baton, when the leadership of Europe (European Regional Director) was passed from Roy Harrison to Gerd-Walter Buskies.  Here Roy and Ruth are standing next to a painting presented to them, painted by Aapo Pukk – a respected portrait painter from Estonia who has painted heads of state and leaders in Europe & US.
G.W. Buskies is holding the mic.  There were all kinds of surprises throughout the day bringing laughter and tears.

[picture 4.] Our Multimedia department was busy for several months leading up to the conference completing projects to introduce to the workers for their ministry.

[picture 5.] From here Brent Hautle (the graphic designer at Kilchzimmer) operates the lights located in every corner and sets up the presentations for projecting on the wall.  Brent gave an excellent seminar on giving effective presentations.  You can view/download this from the Conference website at ustream.tv.  If you want to view any of the services, drop me an email and I'll give you the URL and password to watch any of the recorded services and messages.

[picture 6.] Markus (CEF Austria) was responsible for the sound system.  They had an amazing sound system and Markus felt right at home with all the mics, knobs and sliders.

[picture 7.] One of my responsibilities during the conference was to control the video cameras and projector.  Also, off to the side I had my laptop set up to control the video stream for viewing LIVE over the Internet.  Getting this to work with the video console is a story in itself.  There were quite a few people around the world watching the services live and another 400+ people watching the services later.  Even though this kept us busy operating the console it was quite exciting (and fun!). :-)  

Do You Wonder Why? (Poland)

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Original English version and new cover of Polish version.

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Updates are given at end of this post!

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CEF has a 16-page evangelistic booklet entitled, Do You Wonder Why? – Answers to Tough Questions.  This booklet is distributed in specific areas of the world immediately following a tragedy whether it be a natural disaster or, in this case a country in mourning after the tragic accident where a plane carrying the Polish president, First Lady and other top Gov't officials, crashed enroute to a memorial service in Russia remembering another tragic event in Poland's history.

CEF Poland is planning to distribute this Gospel booklet in Poland this coming weekend and the following days to coincide with other events (funeral of the president, etc.). 40,000 are planned for the first printing and a second printing is planned.  We had to act quickly to get the book printed in time.  A print shop in Poland is ready to print the booklets.  There is still a few more details to be completed before the files are ready to print ... in four hours from now!

Here are examples of the illustrations I needed to complete – in one day.  It was important to replace some of the visuals with illustrations that directly relate to the plane crash in Poland.  These changes will give more impact and make it more applicable to the Polish children (and adults) at this time.  The photo I took of the boy was from a previous project and I was able to "tweek" it for use with the cover theme.  Besides the time constraints to get it done, there was the challenge of how to sensitively illustrate the tragedy.   

There is a window of opportunity now  as the people are looking for answers.  Pray that this booklet will be used to provide answers from the Bible and introduce many children (and adults) to the Saviour.

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Above is the original English version and new page spread showing the plane crash site.  This page talks about fears and questions children may have.  

Questions addressed in the booklet include: 

• Does God know and care about me?  
• Why do so many bad things happen in the world?  
• Why did God allow this to happen?  
• How can I get through this terrible time?

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This shows the original English version and the page with an image inserted, relating to the plane crash.  The challenge here was taking a digitally drawn image and having it match the original artwork (traditional media) done by another artist several years ago.

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(4/15) update: 
40,000 booklets are being printed now in Poland.  60 churches are taking part in distributing the booklets.  On Saturday, about one million people are expected in Warszawa for a memorial service.  There is also plans to distribute booklets on Sunday in Kraków as several hundred thousand are expected to gather for the funeral of the President & First Lady.  On Saturday there is a pastor's conference and the booklets will be offered to the pastors for their congregations to distribute across Poland.


(4/20) update:
In Warsaw on Saturday several thousand booklets were distributed in a couple hours.  Several thousand more were distribute on Sunday in Kraków.  Children, adults, and elderly people eagerly received a copy.  The distribution continues with a second printing planned.  Pray for the follow-up.

Software Design Course

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This past Thursday was the last day of the Software Design Course held in Kilchzimmer for CEF workers involved in literature production. Eight students attended from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.  Brent Hautle organized the 10-day course and taught the classes.  It was a packed schedule that included a visit to a local print shop, in-depth learning of the Adobe Creative Suite production software programs (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) and learning effective principles of design.

I enjoyed helping teach two seminars relating to Photography, Adobe Bridge and how to edit images in the Adobe Camera Raw editor.

Pray for these students as they return to their countries and need to recall all that they learned in preparing and producing materials to reach children with the Gospel.  Several students return to countries where they are directly persecuted for their Faith and ministry with the children.  It was an answer to prayer that their visas came through (at the last minute!) to attend the course.  

Other similar courses are scheduled as the need arrises and held in locations around Europe.

Sources of learning (online & print)

During Christmas break, I've had some time to catch up with the looong list of blogs I am subscribed to.  Most of the blogs relate to illustration (art) or photography.

Here are some of my favorite blogs that have been most useful to me in the work.

Art/illustration related:

Gurney Journey – James Gurney is a well-known illustrator whose blog is rich in fundamental (time-tested) techniques illustrators should be aware of – colour theory, composition, story-telling through illustration, etc..  Even though my workflow has shifted over the years to being entirely digital, it still needs to first be grounded on these foundational skills.  There are no computer shortcuts, quick fixes, or instant "art filter plugins" to get around it!  The computer is just another tool for the artist (like a brush).  Unfortunately many young artists today allow their computer and the software developers to control them and their creative decision making process.

There is so much info here that the blog's content has been conveniently edited into a book, "Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist".  For my work, "what doesn't exist" can also refer to recreating through illustrations past historical (Bible) events.

Bible Illustration Blog – Excellent resource for accurately illustrating historical Biblical events and communicating the truths of God's Word visually. Graham Kennedy is one of the few Bible illustrators who invests many hours of detailed research to make sure every part of his illustrations are historically accurate to the Biblical accounts and clearly communicate the Truths of Scriptures.  I highly recommend this blog to anyone involved in creating or even just using Bible illustrations in their ministry.

One nice surprise I discovered on an art blog last week was the complete "Famous Artist Course" 24 part series (1960 edition) available for free download online [update: download link has been removed from website].  This course was created around 50 years ago by a group of top illustrators from America's Golden Age of illustration (Norman Rockwell, etc.) and is considered a classic by artists today.  It's been out of print for many years but you can find old copies on eBay for around $250, so you can imagine the joy of seeing it available for free online.


Photography plays a role in ministry and is a vital part of my illustration workflow.  Here are several Photography blogs that I follow.

Strobist – One of the most popular photography blogs on the Internet, focusing on off-camera flash (strobe) photography.  Photography is more about the use of "light" than the type of camera you use.  For first time visitors I recommend beginning with the Lighting 101 section of the blog.

Pixelated Image – David duChemin is a humanitarian photographer and a best selling-author.  His blog can be summed up in the phrase, "Gear is good, Vision is better".
He has several eBooks I can recommend and has written several excellent print books.
The book, Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision is the best photography book I've ever read.  I didn't need to bookmark my pages – I just picked up reading where the highlighter marks and underlining stopped!  This is a must-read for anyone interacting photographically with other cultures or using photography in your ministry.  Doesn't matter if you are using a point-n-shoot or cell-phone camera.  This is practical "how-to" and touches on the real issues that make a powerful photograph and communicates your initial vision – one of the few things that todays high tech cameras can't do for you. ;-)

There are many other blogs such as smashingmagazine.com (graphic & web design), Scott Kelby (the Photoshop guy), etc.  These are just a sampling of the 50+ blogs from my list.

Chiaroscuro, low-key painting (study)

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Chiaroscuro - (Italian) light - dark.
An art term used to describe the contrast between light and dark.

I was looking through artwork from several great classic masters like Caravaggio, Velazquez, Vermeer, Rembrandt, etc.  I love how they use simple lighting setups to create volume, contrast, composition.  For CEF lesson illustrations, I sometimes use black outlines to create separation for children to clearly see the Bible characters from a distance ... but I prefer to use adjacent light/dark shapes (and colour) to create the separation.  [interesting how often my characters just happened to be framed by a window or doorway. :-) ]

I was taking more reference photos this past week for a CEF promotional (Kids Packet).  A single diffused light source was used for the photos.  I was drawn to this particular photo with how the face was framed by the dark hair and winter coat.
This evening I made a digital oil painting study (practice), creating a low-key painting and incorporating strong contrast in areas, placing light/dark values against each other to create separation, shape/form, all to lead the eye.  It was a good learning exercise for me.

Hope you enjoy the painting.

Photo resources

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There is a constant need for photos in our work.  Having access to the right (quality) photos to effectively communicate the message is one of the biggest challenges we face in designing materials.

We have several options for getting photos.  There are online stock libraries which work in some instances but do not represent specific CEF ministries.  For CEF ministries in action we regularly request photos from our workers across Europe ... and then wait.  There are other times when photos are needed for a project requiring a certain lighting, setup, positioning, image quality, etc..

Here are some photos I took this past week of our European Director's grandchildren visiting from France.  They were great models.  While setting up the lights in their apartment I was reminded of what one photographer said, "Good portraits are 10% photography and 90% moving furniture!".
These photos will be part of a short 3-5 min. video I'm preparing that will be shown in churches across Europe and made available in many languages.  I was able to control the lighting and get the consistent results needed between all the photos in the project.  Photos like this can be used again for future literature projects.

Technical notes: I imported the photos into Adobe Bridge, edit them in Camera RAW, then opened in Photoshop to mask the subject from the background (creates a transparent background around subject).  This allows me to place the subject as a floating object against any background.

Children's Ministry Leadership Course

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The 3-month Children's Ministry Leadership Course recently started up at Kilchzimmer.
The Autumn course has 18 students taking the classes in German and 12 students taking the classes in English.
It can be a challenge waiting for a good photo day.  This afternoon, I quickly snapped photos of each class ... in between the big gusts of wind, blowing leaves and hair.  You'll notice I asked someone to hold down the flash and umbrella stand from flying away.  The rain came as soon as we finished.  That's Swiss weather!


Photographer tech notes: I used the flash (manual setting) to help warm up the shadows on the faces and fill in around the eyes. The flash helped to counter the cool overcast day and surrounding green reflecting onto their faces.  Because I used a single umbrella for a group shot, I had the umbrella center pointing toward the far end of the group, feathering the light across those nearest the umbrella and giving an even coverage of light across the entire group.

Meet the Author – lesson series (cover)

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The cover is ready!

After a few years of start/stops due to other project priorities and deputation in the US, I've finally completed the illustrations for the Meet the Author Bible flashcard series.  With the completion of the visuals, the project is now ready for printing later this month at a print shop in Poland and will be distributed to CEF national offices.  Several countries have completed or are working on the translation of the text.  The lesson text is printed separate and there is no text integrated in any visuals to make them usable in multiple languages.   

Please continue to pray for the printing, ongoing translation, distribution of the lessons, and that the lesson series will be used to reach many boys and girls with the Gospel.

Meet the Author is a 5-part Bible lesson series on the Person and work of the Holy Spirit.  Illustrations will be printed in a 24x34cm ring-bound flashcard book with accompanying lesson text.  

As with most of our visualized lessons, we have plans to offer it in the future in PowerPoint format.  

Illustrations created in Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Corel Painter X.  The cover was created in Adobe InDesign.