JFlah's Blunders

 Just got the new mini-series info this morning and after a short discussion with the guys, we settled on 'The Bible Says...' as the series title and that the message topics would be revealed in some kind of blank each week.  One of them mentioned it could be like Family Feud but when I looked up those graphics, I didn't see how that would work, but I liked the simplicity of the Jeopardy board. I went looking for some fonts [that I didn't use LOL] and put something together but it was a flop - just one look and you'll be able to tell me why...  Yep - although it was eye catching - it wasn't the message we're trying to get across so I ran in a different direction and ended up with this for the first message in the series... Now my talented co-worker will get to do a bumper but I might do one too.

A friend asked about whether or not I'd draw an idea for her that was inspired by lyrics from a popular song we've done in worship service. She sent me a sketch of the idea and so I got to thinking and doing some research. Went first to unsplash to study how water flows over things, found some great poses for reference and some hands in a pose that worked and then I composited the images in photoshop and went to town. This process took way longer than expected [as usual LOL]. She didn't hire me - after our back and forth discussions, she did another sketch and seemed happy with it. Here's the original sketch she sent. Here's my first version of the digital sketch. She said it was too dark and I agreed fully. It was a deluge of blood - little too freaky. This is the next sketch she sent. Much better than the first and certainly gets the idea across. This is the final version of my digital drawing and a peek at the under sketching. Could probably refi...

New sermon series is coming... Attempt 1: I knew it might be a bit too conceptual for Pastor, but I usually try that route first just to prime the pump and then I was hopeful that he'd go with it, so I showed it to him. He's like, "Uh, Jen, reign it in." One of the messages for the series will be on the 2nd coming of Christ and that made me think about how His grace transforms us from "goats" to "sheep" and... yeah, was too conceptual for Pastor since the focus for the series isn't literally on how Christ separates the Sheep and Goats. [background template from Igniter Media] He liked the title text layout/font choices and the dark background so here're the next few proofs: I didn't want to do butterfly imagery since it's so over done... so here's changing leaves... [leaves photo by Chris Lawton ] A moody landscape [image from unsplash by Michael Dam ] Just the text... kinda nice, actually. Mood...

So... yeah - this... Resources:    Mouth: Photo by Dan Cook, offered freely on Unsplash here    Pear: Photo by Bence Balla Schottner, offered freely on Unsplash here

I really need to brush up on my digital painting skills - would really like to be able to grasp color a bit better and that means many more hours of practice. Not sure that's something I want to invest in, but I sure love it when something comes together. Green bottle - digital painting done in photoshop with a Wacom and some cool brush tools. I cheated and sampled colors from the source photo. Glass has always been a scary drawing/painting subject for me.

Finished up a fun photo collage poster in photoshop this week. Last week I started the design but even though I liked the copy for it, the overall design I'd started with wasn't working. I ran what I had by our Communication Director. He suggested a kinda rustic background that had some tech gadgets so I went looking. I found many wonderful options on unsplash, but settled on this one by Rawpixel : Then I had to figure out how to make it work in the 4'x3' format I needed for our frame and how to make it more "us" - here's a screenshot of the changes I made. Can't wait to see this one printed. Removed "dream," extended the wood at the top and added some vignetting, added title to the book from another image, and a screen shot to the computer and the phone... And the final image with text

American Gothic image from wikipedia - bubble image from a YouTube video - Digitally painted new lips, shadows, and buck-teeth in Photoshop, comped the images together & added filters.  I can hear him now. "Now, Ethel. I told ya we was gonna set for tha camera. If'n ya don' spit that out now, I'm'a gonna pop it with this here fork!" Inspiration Image is the one of the Mona Lisa blowing a bubble .

Had a blast creating this piece! There are lots of little pieces and shadows and such that was fun to figure out. Here's the two final versions and below that are bits and pieces used to create them: Final Bulletin Front - feet on box Final SD slide - no box Original feet didn't have legs in the pic so I found some random legs and put them on. Used surgical scrub green and a modern clean font for the title work. A co-worker took a photo of his feet with a toe tag I'd created for him tied to his toe. I didn't like the perspective, but liked the tag so I cut the tag out, reshaped it for the perspective I was going for, added shadows. Took another pic of a bow and added that and its shadows. Then I constructed the pine box from some wood pictures and then blurred it so it looked like it was far in the distance. Talk about fun! the original feet picture Co-Worker's feet photo Pic of the bow I took wood pic coworker took used to build ...

Last week I spent an afternoon working on some upcoming designs. The image Pastor sent to me is from here . Someone used it for a nice looking book cover for a family worship topic. After doing the small format designs, I realized that there was no way that tiny image was going to work for the 20x30 poster we need in the ministry center, so I started pulling pieces to put together something that would work in the larger print format. Here's the original that Pastor sent to me - nice huh? It looked blown out but after some quick level adjustments I had a base to work with. This is the final edited version for the HD Slides and another for the 20x30 poster:   Probably could use some more shadow for the hymnal that goes onto the Bible, but I think it's effective enough to pass muster. Wood grain texture that I tiled and color corrected for the replaced table top is here and then the great scratches for the overlay for a more realistic table is here . Here '...

Last week I got to do a fun collage for the sermon title imagery. Title was "You Can Be Right and Still Be Wrong" - message was from 1 Corinthians 8 . Here's the final: Banana image borrowed from here . Foot/leg from here . Font: Headline Crack Background is a combination of two images - a concrete wall background and a wood background with some textured layers over the top and some perspective wizardry. The bit that was the most challenging was making the banana look like it was in the scene. As you can see the source image is on a white background and it was lit well. I had to make it look like it fit into the scene I'd created and make sure the shadows were enough to make it look realistic. That was the most fun I've had designing something for work in a while.

"Murder sin in its infancy" is a phrase I have oft repeated to myself as a reminder of how quickly thoughts can grow to become actions. If I am merciless with the cute little baby thoughts - thoughts that seem innocent and sweet by killing them in the cradle, then there is no opportunity for that sin to grow into full fledged adult sins with drivers licenses and such that wreak havock within my relationship with Christ. Christ has liberated me from the tyranny of sin by paying the ultimate price - he purchased me and my life and my rights to be the driver of my own life. How can I "add my spittle to those who spat upon the cross" by consciously allowing sin to gain any foot hold in my life? Wish it was always easy to recognize and fight that fight. I cannot do it on my own - it is only through His power that I even recognize anything as sin. He is the one who keeps me on the narrow path and I praise Him for it. [Verse: Colossians 3:5 - and here's an i...

For the semi-annual car show, we've used a design I made several years ago - at least three or four years ago. Yeah, it's old and so I was hoping I could refresh it. After I created a mark for the event, I got to looking around - found some great wallpaper images of classic vehicles, clipped them out of their backgrounds, added shadows and reflections and ambient color, a background, some filters, and voila! new flyer design. Of course, it took a long time to get everything the way it needed to be since the vehicles were all different sizes and such, but I have to say that I think the new version is a big improvement over the last. Here's the new version:   Here three of the main resource images:  This is the original inspiration for the change of the layout:  Here's the old version: I know - clunky design, right? Loved the picture though.

So, last week the title was "Jesus Loves the Little Children" - pastor mentioned that having some hands reaching would be nice. I found some stellar stock photography and added a few things: a sleeve, some filters, and the wound for the adult hand. Also, the child's hand had a finger that looked a bit double jointed and I edited that to make it a little less obvious.  Creating the wound was the fun part. I drew a freehand shape, filled it in, added some grunge around the edges and some general filters and then found a photo online of a wound that I warped to fit the shape I'd created - that additional layer really helped give what I'd done better texture. I'm not sure I pushed it as far as I should but I know what I did was enough to give the impression that the adult hand represented Jesus. Here's the final SD slide: And a close up of the wound without the filters. Sleeve resolution looked fine in final slide but not so much in this close u...

Sermon title: How's Your Image? Reference text: Genesis 1:26  Additional Direction: Carnival Mirror, Reflections; our image is distorted because of sin but we're made in God's image and He restores that at salvation. When in the research phase of looking for images that might be useful, all of the carnival mirror images I found were goofy. Could've made my own carnival mirror image and put it into a frame for an interesting effect, but ran across the apple reflection picture and thought it had potential too. Worked that one up but over did it - pastor said both images were broken and Christ restores so we nixed the broken mirror part of the image and voila! Done. This is the first shot at the design. Constructive criticism was that "both images are broken - Christ restores" - so I removed the broken image bits and kept the original reflection for the final version and added some filters. HD Slide version of the final. Source Images with bac...