The Wonder At The Well

May 18, 2024May 17, 2024Leave a comment

Illustrations for Redemption Press

2 of 18

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.

A cartoon illustration depicting a woman with her hand on one hip looking annoyed while talking. She is speaking to Jesus, whose arm is shown held out to her. The rest of Jesus' body is not shown. Both people are wearing Roman-style clothing from the time period of Jesus' life.

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.

The Wonder At The Well

May 16, 2024May 16, 20241 Comment

Illustrations for Redemption Press

1 of 18

I recently finished a series of illustrations for a book titled The Wonder At The Well by Vicky Wedel for Redemption Press. By the publisher’s name, you can guess this is a story for the religious market. It tells the biblical story of the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at the well and was so moved by what He said that she immediately went to bring most of her village to come listen to and learn from Him.

Nothing against the story, but it’s not the most visually interesting tale. It’s basically just people talking in every panel. Talking about something that a Christian audience would find very important and inspiring, of course. But still just talking.

However, there was one interesting challenge. I’m sure you’re all aware of the controversy about how to best depict Jesus in art today. Historically, most cultures generally depicted Him as looking like themselves. So, in Asia, He looked Asian. In Africa, He looked black. And in America, He’s usually depicted as white. That’s not necessarily a problem except that, unfortunately, at least in the US, there’s been a lot of White Nationalism that’s become attached to the image of White Jesus. To avoid the stink of that, many Christians here now prefer a more historically accurate Brown Jesus. But not everyone.

To sidestep the whole messy issue, the author on this project decided she just didn’t want His face shown clearly in any of the images. She wanted all back views and obscured views. Nothing straight on with any clear details to his face.

So, the unique challenge for me was to illustrate this story so that it’s not just a series of back views of Jesus. To be clear, there are some back views of Jesus. It couldn’t be avoided. But I’m very proud that I managed to make sure it wasn’t all back views.

Here’s our first one. It shows Jesus’ back, but also the narrator, townspeople, and the town in the distance.

A cartoon illustration depicting a narrator introducing the opening scene in the story. She is in the foreground gesturing to the people behind her. In the distance, Jesus sits on the edge of the well while people travel by foot up and down a narrow road that leads to a walled town. All people are wearing Roman-style clothing from the time period of Jesus' life. One of the people approaching the well is the narrator, a woman carrying a vase.

Another thing to note is the speech bubble. This project is drawn using comic book elements including speech bubbles and panels. This panel is a two-page spread with a quarter-inch bleed. I’m not including the text of the manuscript in these art samples, only the art.

Matthew 14:22-33 – Image 8/8

September 1, 2019August 25, 20192 Comments

I recently completed illustrating Matthew 14:22-33 for United Methodist Publishing House. This is the eighth image in the series.