Lectionaries
When I was preparing to create art for churches, I knew that it would be based on the 3-year cycle of readings used by many churches throughout the world. I also knew that the art would predominantly be based on the gospel reading for each service. But since I did not want to serve congregations of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) exclusively (of which I am a member), I looked at the lectionaries of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), and the Roman Catholic Church.
Even though many of the readings change between the lectionaries, I was pleased to find that the gospel readings stayed relatively the same. It was also interesting to see the variations in lectionaries, i.e. what is included/excluded, psalm antiphons, changes made to the original Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), and the WELS' new supplemental texts that barely resemble the previous lectionary texts of the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW).
I use this large database of lectionaries every week in preparation for my art. Doing the hard work of compiling all this data has paid off in the end and has saved me hours upon hours of time that is best served actually creating the art.
Since some of you may find this beneficial, and because I'm such a nice guy, I'd like to share this research with you. I'll have to admit that the formatting is not the greatest (I quickly exported it tonight), but I think it's still fairly easy to follow. I might figure out a way to eventually make a more intuitive way of looking at these via a website, but here it is in all its 7-point-font-76-page-glory:
Update: The PDF contains data from my personal study and the texts for the WELS in the comparison charts use the supplemental lectionary. This can be misleading since the lectionary of the Christian Worship hymnal is still used by the synod. The lectionary texts of the Christian Worship: Supplement hymnal are to be viewed as alternates and do not replace the Christian Worship lectionary.
Making St. Michael & All Angels
Next month marks a very important milestone for me. It will be exactly one year since I started Paramentics, creating weekly art for the readings of the church year. It's hard to imagine that it's been this long, especially when considering the months of preparation before I even got the website up and running. But here we are—with the first series nearly complete, a large collection of templates, and other useful artwork—and it's only the beginning.
To celebrate this occasion and to answer one of the most frequent questions that was asked from the many emails I've received, I will walk you through my creative process when making each set of art. I will be using the art for the festival of St. Michael and All Angels as the basis for this article.
Research
Every Sunday evening, I plan out my week and the art that I will be making. I briefly look over my custom lectionary database to see what the lessons are for a particular service. Over 90% of the time, the art will be based on the Gospel lesson, and if I want to make text art based on a verse, I will look at the psalm of the day.
After reading the lesson—in this case, Revelation 12:7-12—I'll begin taking notes. Sometimes I find it beneficial to look at the original Greek (or Hebrew for O.T.) and read through my seminary notes on a particular section of Scripture. This also keeps me active in these languages to avoid the risk of forgetting them.
By this time, I already have some idea of what I want to sketch out and the way I want it arranged. I then head to the internet and research the art that's based on the text. Artists like Dürer, Cranach, and others from the Reformation era are useful for me when looking for symbolism and how they used the images to capture a scriptural truth. Stylistically, I look at Byzantine art and the icons of the Eastern Orthodox church. This process doesn't take long, since much of the art has already been conceptualized after reading through the text.
Sketches
After about an hour or two or research, I then begin to sketch out the preliminary framework for the art on a plain piece of paper. You can see in the image to the right that I originally wanted the wings to bend downward, but I still wasn't sure if I wanted them that way, so I lightly drew other configurations.
The final sketch is made in my Moleskine notebook, but since this piece is much larger, I used a large 17" x 11" piece of paper to make the final copy which was scanned and uploaded to my computer (You can see this sketch in the gallery at the end of the post). I only make a wireframe version of the art and always keep in mind how it will look when certain elements are eventually filled in with black. This is crucial, since there must be a proper balance between the black and white space in the art.
My Moleskine notebook which contains all my final sketches to be scanned and imported into Adobe Illustrator.
An early sketch with different wings.
Illustrator
Now for the most time-consuming part of the project. The sketch is now scanned and opened with Adobe Illustrator on my MacBook Pro. In Illustrator, every line is traced over manually using the Pen tool. I try to follow the lines of the sketch accurately, but in some cases I will alter the design a little. I then begin filling spaces in with black and changing a few of the lines from black to white. For this particular piece, many of the lines were changed to white for the angels' wings.
I then systematically start to make minor alterations to each individual vector. This amounts to about 300-500 adjustments that I manually adjust to create a more stylized rendition of the art, and also to maintain a good balance between black and white. Other elements are also added that may not have been included in the original sketch. Art is now separated from the main art board to create the smaller pieces of art included in the set. If there is text art, I'll begin making it at this time.
The near-final art is printed on regular copy paper to test how it physically looks when used for worship folders. I will mark with a red marker any corrections that need to be made and fix them in Illustrator. I attempted something new for this set and made the wings extend out of the 4 x 6 frame. This decision was made after printing it out and realizing that it would actually work quite well if done this way.
Watch the video below for a time-lapse of the entire process of making the art in Adobe Illustrator. I cut out large sections from the video to keep it short, but it will at least give you an idea of how much labor goes into making one set of art. The clips were sped up to about 4000-times their original speed.
Finishing Up
Once the art is done, I then add my initials to one of the bottom corners and export the art as PNG, JPG, TIF, and EPS files. I go through my checklist of things that need to be done after exporting the art and eventually the art is uploaded to Paramentics for you to purchase.
That's pretty much it. Each set takes about 6-12 hours to complete, including the research and early sketches. This set took longer (about 16 hours) due to the fact it was much larger than a normal set, and I produced a video and music to coincide with the release of the art.
It has been a wonderful privilege to serve all of you for nearly a year, and as a special thank you for all who support Paramentics, I am releasing this new set for only $1 through September 29th.
A New Look & Promote Page
Over the past month, I've been working on the Paramentics website as I had envisioned it nearly a year ago. The one thing that had always bothered me was the lack of color. When your website's content predominantly consists of black and white images, it can be hard to make it stand out, or rather, it's easy for it to look pretty dull.
In the past, I've made a few tweaks here and there to accommodate the new content and the addition of an integrated shopping cart system, but due to time constraints and other goings-on in my life, I did the simplest thing possible—i.e. white background, black/grey menus, and red links. Even though it functioned well, It sorely needed a slight overhaul in design.
Making the website more colorful was easy to plan out on paper, but implementing the necessary code was not. You'll notice that each major section has its own unique accent color (Art=red, Symbols=green, Elements=yellow, etc.). Red is still used as the main accent color, but it's now a little brighter than the previous red that was used. Pictures cover the top of every page and more will be added/changed as time goes on. The logo was also moved to the top-left corner to make room for the pictures.
The hardest thing to figure out was how to organize the ever-growing sets of art. I decided on showcasing the art with colored backgrounds according to the liturgical color for that particular service. It will hopefully make it easier to spot which art you are looking for if you know the colors of the church year. The difficult ones will be the many Sundays after Pentecost or Ordinary Time, so I'm working on a way to perhaps make a specific Sunday's name visible when hovering over the artwork. If you'd like more information on the colors of the church year, check out The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod's explanation of the colors of the liturgical season.
Help Promote Paramentics
A few of you have asked me about ways in which you can help promote this site and its art and templates. I am constantly looking for ways to expand the reach of Paramentics as a valuable resource for churches, schools, and organizations. So today, I am releasing a page where anyone can download and use this site's logos and banners to help promote Paramentics. You can find the link at the bottom of every page, under Help Promote. If you would like to commission me for special art or service folders for conventions, conferences, or festival services, you may contact me using the form on the About page. I will eventually showcase some of those commissioned works on my personal website in the coming weeks.
Hymnal Project Music
I recently made some music for a video for the new WELS Hymnal Project website. It's about a minute long and is based on the hymn tune, Lasst Uns Erfreuen. I made the first few recordings with an iPhone and the Garageband app for iOS, and later exported the audio to my computer. Here is one of the early demos of the song and the sheet music:
Future Projects
I launched Paramentics back in October of 2012, and since then, I've created over 150 individual pieces of art, two sets of elements, 40 symbols, and 3 themes of worship folder templates for Microsoft Word and Apple Pages. That's not bad, considering the time I also spend helping churches with other graphic design projects. Creating the art and templates for Paramentics takes a massive amount of time and money, and more and more of my schedule has shifted to time devoted to this website. You have certainly made that time worth it.
I'd like to personally thank all those who purchase and use my art and templates. Even the churches who use my art for only a couple weeks of the year help in supporting me and this ministry in a very big way. I am humbled by the response I have gotten over the past several months. Thank you for your support, critique, and feedback. I cannot thank you enough.
From the very beginning, my aspirations for this site has been grand -- to say the least. Much more can and will be done. To give you an idea of what to expect in the future, I've outlined some key projects that I will be working on over the next several months.
Art, Art, and More Art
The flagship product of this website will always be the art that can be used on a weekly basis for worship folders and other materials. Now that the first set of templates for Word and Pages are completed, I will have more time to devote to the creation of art. To be honest, I have been lagging a bit on the art and will now bump it up to 1-3 sets a week instead of the one-a-week pattern that you've seen over the past couple months. This will create a rolling buffer that will consistently stay ahead of the church year to give churches more flexibility in planning their worship folders and also purchase more than one set at a time. Even though it's nice to have a routine in purchasing artwork every week, it'll be nice to have a little more freedom in when to purchase the artwork.
The next Symbols release is fast approaching. It will feature symbols of the evangelists, disciples, and apostles. These will be useful for reflecting which gospel is read for a particular Sunday and also to educate your members about each one by including a short summary within a worship folder. More details about this are coming soon.
Tuesdays will still remain as the day in which I announce new art/updates via email. Twitter and Facebook will be updated instantly when new art, blog posts, or other items are posted on Paramentics.
Certificates
A few of you have expressed interest in creating art and templates for baptism and confirmation certificates. I think this is a wonderful idea and I believe it is something that has been lost over the last 50+ years. Just look at the few examples below:
Wouldn't it be great if you could hand a mother, father, or child something like this? It would certainly be something that I would frame and hang up in my home or study. Unique art would be created for these that are embedded into a template. Some text would be editable (e.g. the name of the church and scripture passage) and other areas made available for signatures.
Research and development of these will take place over the next year. They will be 11" x 17" in size with the possibility of smaller sized paper. I will also give out resources on where to print these and what specific brands and types of paper you can use.
Banners
While I was in Italy, I often heard the joke that the reason banners are so popular in American churches is because they are trying to cover up ugly sanctuaries. Certainly our churches here may not be as ancient or ornate as some found in Europe, but I will defend the popularity and use of banners over here in the Americas. I love banners, and I think there are some real benefits in using them inside a church.
The use of banners dates back to the Old Testament. But even if their purpose is far different now, their symbolism and art can enhance worship in a visual way. Banners can reflect the season of the church year or be used in a procession. These are but a few examples of how they can be effective within worship.
Unfortunately, the quality and art used in banner design is lacking here in the U.S. The best banner maker -- in my opinion -- is Slabbinck , which is a church vestment and art producer based in Bruges, Belgium. Not only are their designs simple and elegant, but the use of Raytex DM for the fabric will ensure that a banner will last more than a couple decades.
I will begin to draft and make some designs for banners this Summer. The original plan was to make and sell sets of banners purely in digital form that could then be taken to a printer. But I think in this case, it might be important that I also have control over the end-product. As with the art on this website, even though I do not have control over what kind of printer every church uses, I can rest a little easier knowing that I have beautiful templates that can accommodate the art. In the same way, I would like to partner with a printer/company to ensure the quality of the banner and my designs are the best they can possibly be. This may prove futile, but I will try, especially in making the process easier for churches.
More Templates
I will eventually be working on more worship folder templates in the distant future. These will use the larger-sized Ledger paper (folded size: 8.5" x 11") and will focus on festival services, song services, and choir programs. I still do custom programs for churches and schools via my personal website (ianmwelch.com), but this will perhaps give many more a chance to make their own aesthetically-pleasing program folders.
Lectionaries
As part of my research each week, I study various lectionaries and their relationship with one another. The main lectionaries I look at are the RCL, ILCW, and the variations of these by the different synods. Thankfully, the gospel readings don't change much between them. The Old Testament, Psalms, and Epistle readings are where they drastically diverge.
So as a result, I have accumulated a substantially large database of these lectionaries and how my art applies to each of them. I will eventually be creating an online database and index for the art as it applies to these different lectionaries. This would include all the art that is found in each set that may be used on more than one Sunday or service.
I will also be outlining methods on how to best organize the digital files on your computer. Some of these methods include automation, applications, and tagging.
How It's Made
Finally, I will be creating a longer article and video on how I make each set of art. The art is made using both physical and digital media and I think that many of you will enjoy looking at the process I go through every week.
There's more I can mention (I didn't even talk about the Style Guides and Elements that I will be working on), but I think that gives you an idea of the scope of Paramentics as we move into the future.
Yes, this is all very ambitious, but I am confident that I will have your support over the next few years that will turn these projects into a reality. Without your support, I would have never accomplished what has been done so far. Thank you and God bless.