"The Word Made Flesh"

by Scott Zambelli

A few weeks back, I was stopping by the store to pick up some groceries.  I had WMUZ playing (a local contemporary Christian music radio station...which you can listen to online at www.WMUZ.com ).  As I was about to get out of the car, the song I was listening to came to an end and the radio DJ came on and recited her "scripture verse of the week".  Since I was busy with my day and trying to get my chores done, I wasn't really paying attention.  However, when she said the words, "...the Word became flesh", I was immediately hit with a detailed vision of this passage. 

Immediately, I was inspired to get this idea onto paper.  Later that day, I drew up some sketches to figure out how I was going to lay this out.  The vision I had showed words on a parchment and those words formed the feet of Jesus.  As the words moved up his body, they solidified and transformed into living flesh that lifted of the paper and into reality.

Knowing my penmanship isn't any good.  I decided to draw the portion of the artwork that would represent the flesh.  The words and parchment, I would create in Photoshop.  The added bonus of doing the lettering in Photoshop is that it allows me to create 2 different pieces of art from the same drawing.  Here's the second version without the words.

Once I got the layout how I wanted I was able to create the final art by warping the text to flow with the robes of Jesus and have them fade from nothingness into a solid lettering.  The final version, as it was inspired, is shown below.

If you're interested in seeing the various products we have available in our online store featuring both versions of this artwork, just click on the picture below.