Man Doesn't Live on Bread Alone

"Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’" - Matthew 4:1-4

I've been drawing Bible stories for Lifeway for about 2 years now, and to date I've created 114 illustrations for their Explore the Bible series. And I'm still working on more!

Here's a simple scene of Jesus being tempted in the desert. The AD asked for the devil to be depicted as a vague shadow. Here is the rough sketch I sent.

(My husband said, "is the devil doing shadow puppets? Is he trying to make a duck or something?" He's supposed to be pointing to the stones on the ground, gosh.)

The AD asked for the shadow to be blurrier and less defined, but otherwise the sketch was good to go. I wanted to give the scene an eerie, otherworldly feel, so I went with a cool light/warm shadow color scheme. I mean, this is a showdown between Jesus and the devil! It needs to be otherworldly!

I have about another year of Bible stories ahead of me. Once this series is finished I want to print out all the images, lay them out on the floor and take a photo, like Elisabeth Alba did when she finished her tarot card deck. Except my deck will be bigger, and, you know, less heathen.

(I kid, I kid.)

(But seriously though, it will be bigger.)