Creativity Magazine

Do You Hear Somebody Singing Alleluia, Or Is It Just Me??

By Mrstrongest @mrstrongarm

One of my favorite year-end assignments is for the Inland Register, the monthly news publication for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane in Washington State. Editor Eric Meisfjord always asks me to do a Christmas cover.

This year’s features a sheep who wonders if he’s hearing things. He knows it can’t be the shepherd’s iPod, because shepherds couldn’t afford iPods back then… : )

Spokane Inland Register Christmas cover with bishop's message, shepherd and sheep on plains of Bethlehem with heavenly host in sky singing praise to Christ's birth, one sheep asking another if he hears music

Here’s a detail image:

detail image from Spokane Inland Register Christmas cover with bishop's message, shepherd and sheep on plains of Bethlehem with heavenly host in sky singing praise to Christ's birth, one sheep asking another if he hears music

The bishop’s Christmas message is at the top. Here’s a close-up which makes it easier to read.

Bishop's Christmas message appearing on Spokane Inland Register Christmas cover, shepherd and sheep on plains of Bethlehem, heavenly host in sky singing praise to Christ's birth

I roughed out several ideas for the cover. Eric made his selection based on this sketch.

rough sketch for Spokane Inland Register Christmas cover showing shepherd and sheep on plains of Bethlehem with heavenly host in sky singing praise to Christ's birth, one sheep asking another if he hears music

I was curious to see what the illustration would look like with a full night sky, so I did this variation, deleting the bishop’s message, and expanding the heavenly host (Lk 2:13).

If you look closely, you’ll see that some of the angels are duplicates, with different skin and hair color.

Spokane Inland Register Christmas cover showing shepherd and sheep on plains, with light beaming down on Bethlehem from sky, and heavenly host singing praise to Christ's birth, one sheep asking another if he hears music

There’s a little sleight of hand in the musical notation. Anybody spot it? Any music majors out there?

(Don’t waste more than ten seconds on it– it’s pretty obscure.)

musical notation appearing in Spokane Inland Register Christmas cover illustration showing shepherd and sheep on plains of Bethlehem with heavenly host in sky singing praise to Christ's birth, one sheep asking another if he hears music

The question mark is actually a reconfigured bass clef.

I created the clef with Photoshop’s Shape tool. I narrowed it, moved the dots aside, and reshaped it slightly using the Warp tool. I deleted one of the dots, enlarged the other one and repositioned it.

Voilà!– a musical question mark.

music notation sequence showing how bass clef was converted into question mark

The musical notes are also Photoshop shapes. The original stems were thin, and I worried about their visibility.

Solution: I created a new layer and used the Pen tool to draw over the stems, making
them thicker.

sequence showing how Pen tool used to give thicker stems to Photoshop music note shapes

Here’s the final again.

Spokane Inland Register Christmas cover with bishop's message, shepherd and sheep on plains of Bethlehem with heavenly host in sky singing praise to Christ's birth, one sheep asking another if he hears music

Have you ever tried to imagine the night sky filled with the heavenly host singing praise?

Did you know shepherds took coffee breaks, and that sheep can speak musical notation?

Hope you’ll leave a comment.

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