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

Bible Month is 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.

For 2021 Bible Month is focussed on the Gospel of Mark, 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 was an interesting project for me to take on, as in all honesty I’m not religious in the slightest. I do of course respect the faith of others, and am happy for my work to reflect that. I was open with the client about this from the start and I found their view to be quite refreshing - they welcomed the idea of having a ’non-believer’ to do the illustrations as felt it was a positive to work with someone without preconceptions, of the stories, or of how the illustrations should look.

OBJECTIVE

I was approached to create illustrations to accompany the 4 featured passages from the Gospel of Mark. The illustrations were intended to help bring the stories to life in a fresh and vibrant way, and be accessible for different age groups. It was hoped they would convey some of the subtleties and tensions that exist as different layers within the stories and to provide starting points for discussion.

In approaching the illustrations I had initial discussions with the team involved, to help me understand the key messages and more subtle nuances of the different stories.

I had free reign to develop a suitable style and colour palette for the illustrations.

Pictured below are the illustrations in context, each featuring on a double page spread in the resource publication. Design by Dan Nolloth

As with every project, I began with developing sketches for the illustrations. Having been given some initial page layouts for reference, I had a rough idea of the space available for my illustrations. These are my initial sketches… (Click an image to enlarge…)

Once the sketches were approved, I worked them up using a combination of drawing on the iPad, some hand-created textures and elements, pulling everything together with Adobe Illustrator.

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.

” 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

RELATED PROJECTS

These are a couple of my previous projects this client liked in terms of style. I developed my approach for the Bible Month illustrations in order to convey the more complex narratives.

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