Michael Kecseg
This piece was done on illustration board and is approximately 10" wide by 24" long. I used frisket which is basically a low tack clear contact paper and adhered it to the board. The letters were cut and removed from the board and they were airbrushed with a blue acrylic doing a gradation from light to dark.

Once that dried the frisket was removed and another layer of frisket was applied, this time cutting the letters but leaving the frisket on them and removing the background. I also cut the frisket on the sides of the piece to give it a look of a deckled edge.

I then airbrushed the same color I used on the letters but this time reversing the gradation from dark to light. I also splattered on some masking fluid to create the look of a starry sky to clean up the edges of the letters and to help make them stand out a bit I added a white outline to each letter.

Finally I used some white opaque acrylic paint in the airbrush to emphasize a few of the stars in the dark sky and added a starburst effect that traveled from the center of the "O" in the word God to the center of the "O" in the word Love.

Pat Daley
I used Copic marker for the grey stone, highlights on the letters are Dr Martin's, lowlighta and all in between greys are ( catch THIS-my own discovery ): Take a Parker Gel Retractible Refill, break, or work off the writing end, and the ink will start to drip slowly into the first well of a cheap plastic palette. STOP! when the drips begin to slow down--you don't want any of the gel in your black. Then I fill the rest of the wells with a few drops of distilled water, dip a #2 brush in the black, and get lighter greys as I progress to the 5th well and leave the 6th one clean.

The paper was Arches Hot Press 300--which gave the Copic Marker a nice grainy look on the stone face, but the Parker Gel lays down extremely smoothly, better than sumi, and you just let the palette dry out until you want to use it again by adding H2O to wells 2-6. It'll be waterproof, and watercolor washes go nicely and bleedlessly over it, making simple, but adequate shadows.

Oh, I did use some colored pencil in there, too; mostly on the little men--who are supposed to be "Little Medieval Men", not elves.


Annie Barnhardt
When I saw the first two, I was struck by the power of the words and the choice of contemplative hues in “God.”

My work pales in comparison. I chose stones of assorted shapes, and weights because these are REAL things that can hurt, kill, build. I appreciate this quotation because I personally believe I need to build up others through love, acceptance, openness. It’s not the physical or mental/emotional building of walls, but the honest embrace of others through our care and love that God seeks.