This second panel on page 13 shows her sharing Jesus’ Good News with the children of the village. Not much detail, because it’s such a small panel, but she’s clearly impressed those kids.
Pages 13 has four panels, and 14 has one panel. These two pages show the woman very excited to go back to the town and tell everyone about Jesus and what He told her. In this first panel, she is talking to the women of the village. This is a small panel, so it doesn’t need to be very detailed. It’s not important exactly what she tells them, just that she’s very excited about it.
Here on pages 11 and 12 we’re back to a two-page spread with a bleed around the edge. This illustration is where the penny drops. She says she knows that the Messiah is coming, and He responds with, “I am he!” Which, skeptical me, thinks would lead to a lot of questions to confirm such a claim, but this is a bible story, so she takes him at his word.
Remember how I’m not supposed to show Jesus’s face clearly? This scene comes the closest in the book to showing His face, but I gave Him shaggy hair to cover His eyes.
The second panel on page 10 shows people praying outdoors in nature near a tent. This represents another way Jesus says people will pray after they learn his teachings.
On page 10 there are two panels showing how people will pray in the future, after they learn what Jesus has to teach. This first panel shows a Samaritan family praying around the table before a meal.
This is the second of two panels on page 9. In the story, Jesus and the woman are discussing how their people pray, and this panel shows how Jewish men pray at The Second Temple. (If you look close, you might notice that only the men are going up into the temple.)
I had to use historical references to draw the temple because the actual temple was destroyed in 70 CE. Luckily, I found some archeological drawings and photos of models depicting what The Second Temple was supposed to have looked like.
Pages 9 and 10 are drawn with panels instead of the two-page spread I’ve used so far. This is the first of two panels on page 9. It shows some Samaritans climbing Mount Gerizim to pray.
In the story, Jesus and the woman are discussing how their people pray, and this panel shows how Samaritans pray three times a year on Mount Gerizim.
Unfortunately, here we’re back to a fairly boring back view of Jesus as he talks to the woman. But it has a pretty view of the scenery. She is now feeling a bit embarrassed about her earlier attitude.
This image was the one I was most proud of in this project. It’s an unusual bird’s-eye view and shows Jesus mostly as a reflection in the water. It’s the most creative way I found to show Him without directly showing Him.
Additionally, in this scene Jesus is talking to the woman about both real and figurative water. (He’s comparing his teachings to eternal water which will sate her figurative thirst forever.) So, showing the water here served the story.
In this second illustration we see the woman speaking to Jesus with an attitude as he holds out his hand. (He is asking for water, and she’s appalled he’s even speaking to her, since she’s a Samaritan and he’s a Jew.)
Notice how only Jesus’ hand and arm are shown? In the previous post about this I explained how the author did not want Jesus depicted directly. The art direction for this panel was to show Jesus holding his hand out to the woman. So, that’s just what I did. Only his hand and arm were really necessary to convey the idea, so that’s all I showed.
Do you see the animals in this panel? To make the story more visually interesting, the author had me hide a butterfly and a frog somewhere on every page. I also included that cat in some of them. The frog and butterfly are both species native to the area around modern-day Israel. The Middle East Tree Frog and The European Common Blue Butterfly. I was more concerned with visibility than accurate sizing, so they’re both drawn larger than they actually are. The cat is just a regular orange tabby.
Karen B. Jones - Illustrator 