Coal Energy Facts

I created this spec ad for coal to highlight the benefits the USA receives from coal. Many people don't realize how much energy we obtain from coal. Not to mention the variety of other products that coal is to to create. And yet the EPA is trying to limit the use of coal by adding burdensome regulations to it's use and transportation. The USA has so much coal it is consider the Saudi Arabia of coal. Coal is one of the cheapest forms of energy available. The price does not fluctuate like oil does. And with the new technology available the use of coal is getting cleaner and cleaner.

Leave it to the monkeys

As I read this Psalm today I had this image of the mechanical monkey come to my mind. As well as this variations to the statement that Jesus made in Luke 19:40 regarding the rocks crying out, if we failed to praise God.

Back to School Bash Event

SFN Church held a "Back to School Bash" event as a means of ministering to it's community. The event was open to anyone in the community with school age children. The event provided free backpacks and school supplies, as well as a free children's haircut that was donated onsite by a local salon. Everyone who came was fed a meal and drink. Games were provided for the children. I shot footage of the event with my  Canon GL2 from which I compiled this video of the event. And edited it on Adobe Premiere Pro. I produced the work in 4:3 aspect since the churches presentation system uses this aspect.

SFN Video Brand

I created this video brand to use in all the video's I created for SFN Church. It highlights the core values of SFN Church. Reach. Connect. Grow. And then the SFN logo rotates in through it's cross, which provides the churches focuses. Ultimately finishing with the entire logo being seen.

31 Years

Thirty One Years of Marriage. And the dance goes on!

Portrait of my Wife

31 years of marriage to a lovely lady.

Portrait of a dog

Here is a Photoshop portrait of my pet, Lita. No filters used. Just pen, paint brush.

Below is the original photograph. As a model.

Mexico Mission Trip 2011

Title mock up graphic for a video to be shown at SFN church highlighting all that went on during the Mexico Mission trip this summer.
Here is a link to the video I created for this trip and is posted on Youtube. Click here. to watch it.

Rows of people in chairs

Drew this graphic to be used in a video I am working on. These are people sitting in chairs.

Cultivator

Developing some concept art to go along with a theme of cultivating yourself spiritually. Some of these will be incorporated into a video I am developing.

Four Friends

A drawing of four Spanish friends hanging out. Once again I utilized my Wacom pad to draw this picture. As I drew this in Photoshop based on a photo I found on the internet, I enjoyed choosing colors to keep the Spanish feel of the people in the photo. I wanted to insure my work was true to the warmth I felt in the picture.

Converting Photo's to Drawings by Hand (Well by Wacom Pad)

In further preparation to animate people for a video about small group ministries at SFN which will be starting soon, I drew the faces of people in the congregation using photoshop. No filters were used. I drew these faces using my wacom pad and utilizing the different tools, mainly the paintbrush, color sampler, and fill. I started with the faces at the top and finished with the faces at the bottom. I experimented with different brush sizes as I drew each face.

And below is a view of them side by side with the photo I used as a model.

Connect Group Video Prebuild

Recently started work on an animated video that will be used to advertise the Connect Groups to be started at SFN Church. The image is a graphic of Pastor Brandin. It's a place marker for right now until we determine who will do the voice over, then I will animate that person and match up their audio. The bubble will contain words and symbols that relate to what is being said.

Group Connect Concept Graphic

This concept graphic is for a program to get people connected in small groups. The design borrows elements used in ad graphics from the 1950's.

SFN Seating Configuration Redesign

As SFN church had surpassed the 80% seating ration in its sanctuary, Pastor Brandin asked if I could design a new seating configuration that would maximize the space to accommodate more people. So I took some rough measurements of the room and measured the seat dimensions to be able to create this new seating arrangement. Originally they had 3 sections of seating that were long rows and all facing forward. I found that by splitting the outside rows and angling them in, I could increase seating, as well as open the seating up. This gave the appearance of more room, provided more seating in the sanctuary and actually saved seating, as people tend to sit on the outside of the rows. With the long rows, this would result in unused seating, as people tend not to want to walk over people to get to a seat. By making the rows shorter (5 seats) on the wings, this resulted in fewer seats that would remain empty and increased overall seating in the sanctuary. This current configuration will seat 267 when you include the seats on the back wall. And it would be no problem to add extra seats and bump this number up to 300 with ease.

SFN kidz Connection Logo

 

The children's ministry logo at SFN Church was dated and I needed a current one for a video advertising Wednesday night summer program. I specifically designed this logo to be kid friendly. Using bright colors, silhouettes of children having fun and being active and I used a font similar to what Nickelodeon uses as a means of highlighting that this program is for children. I outlined the silhouettes in white and shaded them to help them pop out from the graphic. The cross in the logo is part of SFN's brand and was inserted to create a connection to the overall church.

Panorama of Destruction

I took this panorama consisting of 5 pictures while part of a Disaster Response Team from SFN Church of Springfield, MO to Joplin, MO one week after the tornado struck. I didn't have a tripod available so the pictures aren't as seamless as I had hoped. I superimposed a street view picture from Google to give you an idea of what the location looked like before. Many of the volunteers thought we were in a trailer park not a a neighborhood with stick built homes. I was facing northwest when I took the photographs. I used my Canon PowerShot SD790 IS. To get a better view click on the photograph.

Surreal

My hand at creating a surreal graphic. Once again taking advantage of a photoshopt tutorial found at psd.tutsplus.com. Once again I change some of the graphics they recommend just to see how the effects of the tutorial work on different subject matter. I learned some things I'd do differently next time, but by and large I was satisfied with how my first effort came out.

SFN Disaster Response Team Video

On Memorial Day, 2011 SFN Church sent their Disaster Response Team to help with the cleanup in Joplin, MO following a devastating tornado they had. I shot about 64 minutes of video that day using a Canon GL2. The voice overs were recorded the following Wednesday and are the voices of the team members. I created the title logo by combining SFN's logo and a clip-art tornado graphic that was slightly modified.

SFN Spec ads

 Spec ad for future small groups push.

Generic Spec ad for SFN Church. Various text could be added posting worship times, or other phrases such as, "come grow your family with us", "get your life in focus", etc.

Psalm 121

Had to reload this posting since blogger was down for a day due to them changing software. So here it is again. I took this picture while traveling with my son heading west to Washington. We were in Montana at the time. This graphic was inspired from the portion of Psalm 121 where the Psalmist cries, I lift up my eyes to the mountain, where does my help come from? In the Psalmist day people used to go to the high places to inquire of God. The point of Psalm 121 is that location doesn't matter. Our help is from the Lord. Whether we are in a valley or on a mountain top. Here is the psalm in the New American Standard Version.

¹I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
²My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
³He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
⁵The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade on your right hand.
⁶The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
⁷The LORD will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
⁸The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.

SFN Church News Intro Spec Video

The video format is flash, so the final version will have a higher rez when it is rendered out as an mpeg, or wmv. As you can see this video is 30 seconds long. This would be an extended intro video for the news in lieu of any verbal intro. I created it as an example of what the video could look like. I sought to utilize Google satellite maps to zero into the church facilities. To give a sense of the fact that SFN church is part of a larger community and that we should consider how to reach, connect and grow the body in that community. Which then the news of what's going on in the church would provide ways to reach, connect and grow in the context of the body.

Good Fences

The title of this piece was taken from a poem by Robert Frost entitled "Mending fences." The techniques used to create this were similar to the tilt shift method covered in a previous post. And also some techniques from the newest tutorial on depth of field found at PSD.TUTS+. The texts effects was achieved using the various lighting and shading effects in the layers effects in Photoshop. I used hard light for the fence text and pin light for Robert Frosts name in the grass.

Tilt Shift Effect

I came across this interesting effect tutorial on psd.tutsplus.com that makes the picture take on a tilt shift effect. Here's what it looks like applied to a cityscape of Seattle.

Here is what the original picture looked like.

The original picture was downloaded from stock.xchng by Scott Snyder

Happy Mother's Day

A mother's day graphic to celebrate our wonderful mother's. In this case the mother of my children, my wife. Mother's Day is celebrated once a year, but hopefully you celebrate your mother and the mother of your children. And since my wife is an awesome mother, I've decided to post this early for her.
Happy Mother's Day to my wife.

And here is the graphic by it self.

Life's Journey in a book

I came across a tutorial that taught me how to utilize various composition techniques in photoshop, not having access to all the photo's they used, I found my own and employed them. I titled this graphic Life's journey in a book. The younger couple on the left are walking toward the sunlight, as the older couple on the right walk into the sunset of their lives. You can find the original tutorial here if you would like to try it out.

Welcome Back Spring

Created this graphic using my pen Bamboo Wacom pad and experimenting with different shapes in Photoshop. If you look closely you will see the bee I made in the flower. I realize that some parts of the country haven't seen Spring yet. But it's here.

Man's Anger

Created this graphic while experimenting with a psd tutorial I got from psd.tutsplus.com.
Tutorials are a great way to learn new effects and skills. The key is to not rip off the tutorial and claim the work as your own. But to learn from the tutorial and apply different facets of it to your own creation.

Weather Alerts

I created this poster after checking the weather report online. I struck me as absurd that a tornado watch and high pollen level would have side by side billing. I realize this wasn't the weather.com's intent. But that's how it presented to me when the website first popped up. Stay classy guys.

Survival Rule of Threes

This graphic was created after I ran across a list of survival rules (Maybe I heard them from Bear Grylls)

New Blog Graphic

I designed this blog graphic for our travel blog that will document our road trip for our close friends.

New & Improved

Why Are You Watching?

Made of Stars

This graphic was inspired by a song written by Moby in 2002. The night sky shot is of the Milky Way and was taken over Switzerland. The cityscape is of Vancouver, Canada when it was encased in fog.

7 Minutes

Bait and Switch

The inspiration for this graphic came from what I have observed as the extremes that some churches will go to in the name of "outreach". And when they are challenged on it some churches will say it's all about reaching the lost and point to the number of people that pass through their doors, when the truth is that for them it's become more about the show, doing something that stands out and the accolades of having a "cool" church. Stay Classy Church. Romans 12:2

Perspective Changes Choices

Both graphics speak to issues contained within the individual graphic image. And one can clearly choose to be the sheep in one, and the sheepdog in the other.

Spec Movie Poster

The Quip Pig

Vacation Tips

How The Idea Angel Works

The Ochento Spec Ad

Make mine an Ochento!

Burger-Rama

Images of Evil

Nissan Spec Ad

Walking by Faith

Pre-Chewed

Reflections of Shanghai