FeastDay!

FeastDay!, a board game about the liturgical year for which I did the design and illustration, is coming out this Advent. It's available for pre-order.

It reminds me of a combination of Chutes and Ladders and a Catholic Trivial Pursuit, and there are options for treats!

Catholicmom.com has an article about it and Steve Botsford, its creator:

I met the creator of FeastDay! The Liturgical Year Board Game! at a Charleston, South Carolina Diocesan Conference. Steve Botsford, a convert to the Catholic faith, holds a Master of Religious Education degree from Loyola University and is a master catechist in the Archdiocese of Atlanta. He and his wife are marriage preparation sponsors. He has also served ten years as parish youth minister and remains an active catechist. Added to these game-creator credentials, Steve is a father of three who knows the value of a good family game firsthand.

Read the rest here.

The Road to Walsingham

I recently did a banner, above, and a cover image, below, for the Road to Walsingham podcasts of the various interesting lectures given at Our Lady of Walsingham Church, my old parish and the seat of the US Anglican Ordinariate.

T-Shirt Design and Help Needed!

I designed this for a colorable T-shirt.  We are expanding on the project and are looking for specific symbols for each Gift of the Holy Spirit, but are having difficulty finding any.   Does anyone know if there are any symbols that have been used historically in art and architecture for each Gift?  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

A Manifesto

Not really an illustration but I thought it might be encouraging to members and visitors, think of it as a manifesto for artists of faith:

Sacred Heart Institute logo

Logo I made for the Sacred Heart Institute, a clergy formation institute in New York.

Seal of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter

Official seal for the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

Fraternity of St. Alban medal

A simple design. I'm not sure if the client had it made into an actual medal, but I did my part! :-)

Coat of Arms of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Peter

I had the incredible honour of contributing to the design development and doing the final design of the coat of arms of the U.S. Anglican Ordinariate, which was officially announced yesterday as the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Peter under the Protection of Our Lady of Walsingham.

You can learn more about it here.

The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

 

Based on Orthodox imagery, read more about the meaning here.

Logo for the 30th Annual G.K. Chesterton Conference

Mark your calendars...

The 30th Annual G.K. Chesterton Conference will be held August 4-6, 2011, in
St. Louis, Missouri, at the Sheraton Westport Lakeside Chalet.

The theme of the conference is "Poet and Prophet"

Speakers scheduled so far are: Christopher Check, Pasquale Accardo, Robert
Moore-Jumonville, Carl Hasler, Redd Griffin, Tod Worner, Eleanor Donlon, and Dale Ahlquist.
There will be talks on Lepanto, The Ballad of the White Horse, William
Butler Yeats, Vampires, Winston Churchill, and Chesterton as Franciscan Thomist (or is
that a Thomistic Franciscan?). And there will be a performance of
Chesterton's play "Magic"! More special events are in the works as well.

Request for Help

We have a set of dies purchased off of ebay that cuts out the letters shown above. Can anyone tell me the name of this font? And where I might be able to get a True Type version of it?

Holy Card II

This is  a project still on the drawing board but I thought I would post it as a compliment to J.R.'s holy card. In an effort to reach kids where they live I designed a holy card around the collectible trading card games that are so popular these days. It has the advantage of being a familiar format and sized to work with the archival accessories (mylar sleeves, binders and such) that support the card industry.

Count Casimir Pulaski and a Call for Artists

The U.S. Mint is accepting submissions from artists. The deadline (the second of three for this year) is March 8, 2010.

Count Casimir Pulaski was a Polish national and a hero of the American Revolution. He is considered the father of the American cavalry and died in a battle near Savannah Georgia.

Manalive audio book final cover

Here's the final audio-book cover for Manalive. And, in case you didn't know, there's also a movie based on the novel that should be coming out soon.

Celebrating the Year for Priests

We've finally brought back our coloring contest. This latest image is a break from the style of the previous couple of years. And it's my first completed piece with my new Wacom tablet. To learn more about the image you can go here. The portait of St. Vianney is modeled after the famous sculpture of the curé by Emilien Cabuchet. For a fascinating glimpse into the thought and art during St. Vianney’s time go here. (It's a long read, but well worth it.)

Logo for the 28th Chesterton Conference

below are a couple other versions I liked. It's a challenge to do the conference logo because of the amount of text that needs to be in there. Be sure to check in with the American Chesterton Society in the next few weeks to get more info on the Conference which will be in Seattle this year.





The logo, is of course, based on this essay by Chesterton from Trifles

Feast day of Saint Anthony, Nov. 30

Hi everyone.
Blessed Advent to you all.
This is a gift for my pastor for his "nameday."

Etoile de la Mer

Here's another Adobe Illustrator work. I used Illustrator for 100% of it except for one stage during the creation of the face. I drew the face in Illustrator, airbrushed it up using Photoshop, then returned it to Illustrator and used "Live Trace" to get it back to vector where I played with it a little more.

What I was surprised/happy with was the pattern on her dress. I made a little pattern and used the "Envelope Distort - using mesh" option to get it to form around the folds. It turned out way better than anything I'd done using the mesh tool before.

What didn't turn out so well would be the type. Not only did I not plan out the design well enough to account for such a long line of text, but Illustrator isn't great with it's "Envelope Distort - using warp" when you're looking for an arc at 100% (Illustrator type on a path gives odd results as well) so I had to do a lot of fine tuning and it still isn't completely right.

The copy is from the last lines of Spe Salve and the angel on the right was ripped off from a bookplate that I like. The rest was "inspired" by lots of stuff...

Comments/suggestions welcome!

Stella Maris

Here's another in that style I'm working on. This is from way back in 2005, I think. You can see where I'm going when you see the one I posted before on July 30th.

The feast day of Our Lady, Star of the Sea (Stella Maris) falls on August 24th this year. Thought I'd post this ahead of time in case anyone wants to join me in a novena for the Cajun people starting on the 16th, the day after the anniversary of my vows and the feast of the Assumption... Just a thought!

Feast of Saint Ignatius Loyola

July 31st is the Feast of Saint Ignatius Loyola! On a recent retreat, I worked out a little image in a style I'm still developing. Comments welcome!

Oh yeah, I'm new to this blog. My name is John Brown, S.J. and I've been a Jesuit for 8 years (still have about 3 to go before ordination to the priesthood). I run the http://www.companionofjesus.com/ website where I keep stuff on Ignatian/Jesuit spirituality etc...