Student Ministry Logo

Here's a new logo I made in my free time for a friend who is a Student Minister.  I took the word Reinvent (which he came up with) and used two different fonts for.  The front four letters are one font, and the back four letters are another.  That makes the word itself show the idea of reinventing or transforming.

Piggyback Curriculum - Exodus Kid's Series - Egyptian Woman

Here is another pic in the initial creative process of creating the new Exodus curriculum.  This is a try at a generic egyptian woman.  I didn't want the egyptian princess that we might first think of (ie Cleopatra, etc...), but went for a more normal average egyptian in her surroundings.  To do this, I have to do much study, biblical and historical.  Questions, I have to ask include: What kind of dress did they wear? What color fabrics did they have? Was there a rich, poor and middle class or just rich and poor? How did having the Jews as slaves impact the economic stature of the egyptians? What materials did they make their pots out of? Lamps out of oil, candles or what exactly?

Some might think that I just throw a drawing together, but I put much more into it than that.  What do you think of this and the other concept art?

Piggyback Curriculum - Exodus Kid's Series - Egyptian Man

Here's another image from the new Exodus Curriculum series that I am working on.  I was very happy with how this egyptian man turned out.  I will be working on several "characters" that will be throughout the Exodus series, such as Moses (baby to old man), Aaron (young to old), Pharaoh, generic Israetite man and woman, as well as generic Egyptian man and woman.

Piggyback Curriculum - Exodus Kid's Series

So, I just posted a picture of a camel that I made for the latest kids' curriculum that I am working on, Exodus.  It is going to be the first curriculum under the umbrella of Piggyback Curriculum.  I chose the name Piggyback Curriculum for several reasons.  First, we want this curriculum to "piggyback" onto whatever Team Expansion missionaries, churches and parents are already doing in teaching their kids.  Second, the idea of giving someone a piggyback ride, would be us giving a lift or boost to those same people and groups.  It's the idea of helping each other, help each other.  Does that make sense?  Well, here is a potential cover for the Exodus Curriculum pack which will include, weekly lessons (that will be made available to translate into any language that our missionaries are using), worksheets, color sheets, activities and some videos. 

Camel Work for Exodus Curriculum

Here's my first camel for the new curriculum series I'm working on.

Here's the reference photo that I used in making the camel.

Working on a new curriculum package for Team Expansion missionaries to use.  This will be a study of the book of Exodus.  Here is the first images from the new study.  As usual, I used CorelDraw, now on version 15. Not sure how many weeks the study will include.  That is one of the details that I have to hammer out.  As a general rule, I do at least one per chapter, and then add in additional weeks when a chapter is packed.  Probably for instance, each of the plagues will get their own study, even if there are multiple in a chapter.  Our church has been studying Exodus and it has given me many ideas to think about that could be used in a kids' curriculum.

Caricature for Newsletter - Doug Lucas

As we send out monthly newsletters, we include a note from the president of Team Expansion, Doug Lucas.  He shares from a big picture perspective about missions as a whole within our organization.  Since I had just reformated our entire newsletter design, I thought it only fitting that I "reformat" the image that I used for Doug's note.  See the original pic and the new stylized caricature to fit in with the rest of our newsletter design.

You can see the whole newsletter design and read it too if you want at http://bit.ly/crossersnews201007.  We hope you enjoy it!

Girl Sock Monkey

So, here's another attempt at a sock monkey.  This time I went more modern with bright girly colors.  I made this one for my niece Taylor.

Toy Story 3 Inspiration!

Here is what provides me artistic inspiration!!!! Can you see the little green army men in the houseplant?

Sock Monkeys

So, growing up my brothers and I loved stuffed animals.  Most of our stuffed animals were monkeys, either sock monkeys or the chimpanzee looking ones, based after Zippy the monkey on the Howdy Doody Show.  Since we played rough with our toys, they would rip them or their seams would burst, so Mom taught us how to repair them.  I remember early in my childhood, doing "surgery" to repair the gaping wounds that my animals came to recieve.  Later as I got older, I made puppets for use in Children's ministry and would just create projects by hand, alongside all the other mediums I would use.  Along the way, I even made a few sock monkeys, getting better each time I made one.  We were at Hobby Lobby last month, and I saw the package of Red Heel socks that you use to make sock monkeys, and I thought I would give it a go.  I was going for the vintage look, these toys have been around since the early 1900's.  I was real happy with how it turned out and a few people have asked me to make them one.  So, meet my latest creation.  Ollie the sock monkey:

Here's what he started as! A pair of socks!

My Books - New Page!

Using Blogger's new tools, I created a page for some of my books listed.  It shows where you can buy them and "like" them on Facebook!  On the blog, you can click the link at the top that says "Books" or follow this link - http://mattsketchpad.blogspot.com/p/books.html.