The soundtrack for this post: TV On The Radio – Halfway Home.

The process of creating visual art has been just as rewarding, if not more, than ‘discovering’ the finished product.  I say discovering because often it feels like a stream of consciousness.  Here are a few projects I’ve been working on lately:

1. Potential

The concept of “planting a church” can be on the confusing side.  For anyone unfamiliar with church planting, it is simply a group of people seeking to cultivate organic connections in a new community.

For an upcoming gathering at Awaken, we are planning to discuss this concept of church planting.  The top 3 images are the raw materials I used to assemble the graphic.  My starting point was to ask myself one simple, yet often elusive question:

What symbol supports this concept?

I wanted to avoid being overly explicit.  A degree of ambiguity in art gives room for the real art to happen: interpretation.

I was drawn to the picture of the girl holding the clump of dirt with a sprout (above right) because it seemed to have a degree of sincerity.  In Photoshop, I selected the plant and applied an ‘outer glow’ effect.  As I reflect on it now, I realize that the glow suggests potential.  It implies a sense of unusual vitality.  This sprout is unique somehow.  There is a sense of hope deferred.  Waiting to be realized.  Gradients and shadows are subtle effects that enhance the contrast, visually and figuratively, of what the plant symbolizes.

2. Bird On Twig

I created this visual on Friday, December 10th, the day before a massive blizzard hit the Twin Cities.  A record 20″ of snow fell, marking the 5th largest blizzard in Minnesota’s recorded history.  Needless to say, the snow flakes were a last minute inspiration.  If you’re curious, yes, we canceled the 12.12.10 gathering.

In the first image, I selected the bird and twig, applied an ‘inner glow’ with a shade of green and an ‘outer glow’ of red to the bird.  The bird and twig in separate layers, I applied a blur tool to the bird and left the twig in focus.  The intent was to have the bird in the foreground but out of focus to draw attention to the text in the middle ground of the image.  Finally, the snow in the background was a simple circular brush tool at a low opacity with varying sizes and an added blue  ‘outer glow’ to give it a sense of softeness.

As I mentioned in my last post (intention + creative process), the goal of text is to blend it into the context of the picture.  Text that is merely slapped on top of the art is a bit rushed.  A helpful question to ask is:

What is the focal point?

If the text is not the focal point of the piece, as is true in the church plant graphic, it needs to support the idea, not compete.

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