When including the Bible in an illustration

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Finished another illustration this evening...

If I'm including a Bible in an illustration, I remove any text from the cover as the lesson will be taught in many different languages.  I also avoid having the Bible cover black as this can be confused or associated with religious prayer books, etc. in some cultures/religions.

This picture is at the end of lesson #2. There are 5 lessons with 7 pictures in each lesson.    The Gospel is clearly presented in every lesson. 

Meet the Author – Bible lesson series. printed size: 24x34cm.  Illustrated using Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Corel Painter X.

Building Bridges from the familiar to the unfamiliar

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This illustration is an example from the "Meet the Author" Bible lesson series where a suggestion is given for a visual aid.  The teacher could remove an actual letter from an envelope and begin reading.  For those who may not have a letter/envelope on hand, we've included an illustration.  The letter is building a bridge from something they are familiar with to better understand a Biblical truth they are unfamiliar with.

Here is an excerpt from the text that accompanies this illustration:

"If you get a letter or e-mail from your grandmother or some other person, what kind of things would you find in it?  Isn't there usually some news about the person who wrote to you and then probably something about you: your Grandma says that she is glad that you are doing well at school; maybe she is pleased that you have good friends.  That is exactly what the Bible is like.  There is news in it about God the writer.  The Bible tells us that God is good and loving.  He is totally perfect.  He never does anything wrong."

Flashcard series: printed size 24x34cm.  Illustrated using Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Corel PainterX.

RGB to CMYK

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The title of this blog entry might not make sense to some of you.  Stay with me as I explain ... 

A computer screen or a TV uses red, green, and blue light (RGB) to create all the colours you see on your screen and even then, the colours will appear slightly different on your screen from another computer screen.  If you mix 100% of all the colours together you get white.  

The printed page (offset printing) creates colour differently.  All the colours you see on a printed page are made from cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK).  The range of colours possible with CMYK is much smaller than with RGB as you can see in the image above!  If you mix 100% of all the colours (pigments) together you get black.

Now you get a small glimpse of the challenge we face in bridging these two worlds – creating graphics in an RGB world, on a computer, and knowing how they will appear in the CMYK world – in print for the children.  The above illustration, completed a few minutes ago, is a perfect example.  The image at the top is very bright and saturated.  Most of the colours fall far outside the range possible with CMYK printing (image below).  The bottom image is a soft proof I did within Photoshop on-screen to see how muddy my colours might become when printed and then I decide if a more suitable colour should be used.  Even when I used to work with traditional materials (paint, colour pencils) I still had to store away half my colour pencils and avoid some paint colours because I knew those colours would not survive the printing process.

The illustration above is for the "Meet the Author" lesson series.  Final print size is 24x34cm.  If we produce the series as a PowerPoint® presentation on CD, I will adjust the purple and green again.