PROJECT: BIBLE MONTH - 30 DAYS WITH ISAIAH
CLIENT: LWPT/THE METHODIST CHURCH

Bible Month is produced annually as a resource for churches, youth groups, children and individuals. Focussed on a single Biblical book the aim is to help encourage a deeper engagement with Scripture - it is a toolkit that can be rolled out across 4 weeks of preaching, small group work, and all-age engagement.

Bible Month 2022 is focussed on the Gospel of Isaiah, with the publication available to be accessed at any point during the year. It is published by LWPT (The Leaders of Worship and Preachers Trust) in association with The Methodist Church. Find out more here

This is the second year I have created the illustrations for Bible Month, and to keep things fresh I wanted to put a slightly different spin on the style. You can see the illustrations created for Bible Month 2021 - 30 Days with Mark here

OBJECTIVE

To create an illustration for each of the 4 featured passages from the Gospel of Isaiah, as part of the Bible Month learning resource.

I was supplied with reference points for the key ideas associated with each passage to help me in developing concepts for each illustration, which by their nature contain lots of subtleties, nuances and points for discussion.

The illustration style and colour palette was left to me to develop, with a directive that the illustrations should feel contemporary and with a modern context of our lives today, rather than of ‘biblical’ times.

As can be seen, I chose to take a bold and colourful approach to creating the illustrations.

My process involved uses a mix of analogue and digital technique: Cut paper shapes and drawn elements, pieced together and coloured digitally using Adobe Illustrator on my desktop Mac, and then combined with some further drawing done on the iPad. I like working in this way as the images retain some of the subtleties that come form a handcrafted approach, but that it also offers me flexibility and freedom to develop the images visually. The resulting images are all vector.

Pictured below are some double page spreads from the resource publication, to show the illustrations in context. Design by Dan Nolloth

My initial sketches for each illustration. Client feedback from the sketch stage was very positive, so you’ll see a fairly obvious progression to the completed images. (Click an image to enlarge…)

CLIENT FEEDBACK

My main point of contact for this project was Louisa Lockwood, who is the editor of Preach Magazine as well as leading the production of Bible Month.

(This is feedback from the previous set of illustrations I created for Bible Month. I will ask for feedback on this set once the resource has been used more extensively )

” The illustrations really work well! Carys didn’t shy away from interpreting the complexity and the detail - and that means that people can enjoy them on different levels, they bring the accounts of Jesus to life in a gently humorous way, they lift the pages, the colours are original and attractive, the skill of the expressive faces, body language and interactions that you’ve brought are so excellent - I think they’ll be an ongoing delight to the users.

Overall, the Mark Bible Month booklet is greatly enhanced by having the illustrations in this year. Feedback from the other contributors on the whole booklet is very positive and I think the church users will be excited too when they start receiving hard copies in January. I will let you know!”

- Louisa Lockwood, Bible Month

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