Golden Streams
This was my second attempt at a layered paper effect. The file was HUGE. Lesson Learned: use fewer vectors when working with drop shadows. The sheer amount got hectic, slowed my computer, and ultimately caused it to crash three times. Overall I really, really, really like the effect. The colors are spot on too. This was quite a fun project to work on!
OUR HOPE WILL ONE DAY CRUSH THE HEAD
This was the design for our latest series working through the beatitudes. There are various versions I made of this, but this is the original design. Lesson Learned: Diamonds are hard to work with…but they’re super rewarding if done correctly!
Christmas Party Invitations
This was the front design for our church's annual Christmas Worship, Vision, Reflection, and Food Meeting postcard. I have just been able to upgrade Adobe Suites and this was my first project in the new format. There were some thing's I wasn't able to figure out for this project; but of what I was able to do I feel it is a rather balanced piece overall. Lesson learned: New workflow in Illustrator. This project would also look stellar on pressed parchment.
The Last Days
This is one of those projects that I really enjoyed. The setup was great and fun; the idea was clear. I liked everything about this object. I preferred the whiter version of this image, but everyone else liked the version where you could read it easier from a distance. Lesson learned: White on white is hard to work with; I need more practice in lighting.
Yes Queen
Here’s a project of my sister; I’ve always been a big fan of drawing over photos and this is one that I was rather pleased with. It was a small, quick, 30 minute draw, but I felt it turned out alright. The jacket is underdeveloped and the headdress linework is a bit thin for the background. Lesson Learned: The building in the back made the drawing a bit distracting; don’t use such a light lineweight on such a busy background. Or find another way to make it work.
"Trent" Ep. 1
Lately I have been seeking to dive deeper into the realm of fonts and font effects. I decided to try out a dripping paint one today. I think it turned out fine, the parent image I used as the base of the paint was a bit busy around the “e”, and more time could be spent cleaning up the actual paint dripping, but for a quick piece it turned out nice. Lesson Learned: various Photoshop shortcuts and effects.
"Trent" Ep. 2
Again, I’m dabbling in the fonts. This one is a favorite font of mine, Didot. I felt this piece would be best with something refined and defined, but mellow. It reminds me of a McCheyne quote, “I must be made willing to be forgotten.” The “T” has a funky shadow and I don’t know how to fix it…Lesson Learned: more various Photoshop shortcuts and effects.
Sermon Series: Who is Jesus
This was the first design project I did as a hybrid between my illustrator and iPad pro. Designing this piece was a little difficult, as the theme is a bit broad. Since it is Spring/Easter time I went with a palm leaf and a rather bright pair of typefaces. Lesson learned: New swatches on the iPad that can be incorporated with text.
.f.o.x.
This piece’s focus was on the fog. The trees were rather time consuming, the fox was pretty simple. At first I thought the fur was going to be done by adding layers, but once I started it was easier to start with a black layer and add the fur as an inverse. Lesson Learned: Working with layers is still a bit confusing to me, so I spent more time working on the layers for the trees than anything. If I were to redo it, I would have added the ground layer to the tree layers various gradient of trees. The groundwork would have been far more complex if I had layered things correctly, but by the end of the project I had so many layers it was too difficult to work on the correct layer.
But God
This is the semester theme for my youth group’s 2018 fall semester. This was a fun one because I got to spraypaint a student’s hand. The “But God” lettering was done on my computer, I had a brush stroke I wanted to try out; I think it turned out nice. I’m really pleased with how this one turned out; the “t” interacting with the finger, also symbolizing the cross, as well as a play on “The Creation of Adam” all worked to make a well composed piece
Rock Textures
I had a different vision in mind for this piece, but the original idea didn’t work well with the scale or the shape, so it ended up being more of a lesson in textures and brushes. I painted it on my ipad pro with an apple pencil. Lesson Learned: be super careful with layering.
Beach Retreat
I tried to keep a beach-diner-80's-front porch feelin'-font to set the mood for this design. The logo next to the text is our beach retreat branding image that goes on all beach retreat products. I wanted to keep the design minimal, the text at the bottom helped give weight to the piece. Lesson learned: don't put the text too close to the bottom or it will get cut off!
Summer With the Psalter
Church Graphic: Work done for Stephen Presley.
I spray painted the pineapple torso (excuse my fruit anatomy) and hand painted the leaves, then took the picture on an iPhone. I overexposed the image and enhanced the leaves. Simple design and fun to do. Lesson learned: get a light booth or some lighting equipment.
Snow Shaman
This was a gift for my little sister a couple of years ago; I printed the image on canvas then put it onto a frame. The image itself is huge and turned out quite clear and full. The peach hue gives the white of the leopard a nice pop. Lesson learned: Green and pink are rarely for any project other than that for a little girl. Most all other scenarios, such a color scheme is horrendous and could cause death. Be cautious of this color combo.
Shadow Casting
I really like this design. I found my precedent images on Pinterest, one used the negative space in the “A” which I found quite clever. The other was the candle with down-rolling wax. At first I tried to make the “I” the candle stick…but the positive and negative combo wasn’t working well. Fortunately, the “L” & “I” worked seamlessly. I like the design’s simplicity. Lesson learned: It is hard to balance negative and positive space to make a non-congruent object.
Kingdom Come
This was a fun one. Recently I acquired a thorny crown and I had 3D printed a black crown. The play between the old and natural to the new and clean worked nicely. I had to do some touchup work on the black crown to make it pop. The typefaces were nice, and the “Kingdom Come” was placed so high to balance out the negative space. Lesson Learned: use negative space more powerfully.