How to Create a Visual Sermon Using ProCreate and Photoshop

This post will provide a step-by-step process for how to create a visual sermon/presentation. I’m letting my art-geek self, tech-geek self, and preacher-geek self have a play date. I’m going to use the sermon I just preached this last weekend. This is how I do it. I’d love to see how other people do this type of thing.

The Narrative Lectionary text for Lent 4 was Mark 12:28-44. I quickly realized that I needed to expand to vv.13-44, which created a nice part 2 sermon to last week’s sermon on Mark 12:1-12.

Here is the PowerPoint I used this weekend.

Slides 9-24 were created using the process described below.

Here’s the process

1. Study the text in Logos. This is a cloud-based Bible app, so I can use it on the iPad, my Mac at home, and the PC in the church office.
   

   Logos Bible Software

2. I think in pictures, seriously, so I have to visually map out the text. I usually use the Noteshelf app on the iPad for this process. It has a great variety of pens, markers, and pencils, and allows you to cut, move, and resize elements. Sometimes the process  ends here and I move on to write a manuscript or plot out the visuals in PowerPoint directly (see this post). If the sketch sparks a visual-sequential storytelling idea, I move to the next step.
   

   visual map in Noteshelf

3. Export the noteshelf page to a jpeg in photo gallery on the iPad.
4. Open the procreate app on the iPad. This is a robust art tool that is almost as powerful as using Corel Painter on the Mac (my preferred method of illustration).
5. Import the sketch into procreate.
6. Create a separate layer for each step in the storytelling process. This is where being a cartoonist is nice, but you could draw stick people or import images. Think of each layer as the next slide in your PowerPoint presentation.
   

   procreate app showing the layers dropdown

7. Export the finished art as a Photoshop (PSD) document to your Dropbox account (this is how I share files with all my devices).
   

   share artwork

   

   save as PSD

8. Switch to the desktop computer.
9. Open the PSD file you exported from procreate in Photoshop. All of the layers should be exactly the same.
10. Create a Layer Comp for each slide that you want in PowerPoint. The Layer Comp Window will allow you to rearrange the Layer Comps in any order and cycle through them with the left and right arrows. When you scroll through the layer comps it is like previewing the PowerPoint.
11. Choose File>Export>Layer Comps to Files. Browse to the folder in which you want to save all the separate images. Choose the .jpg format. click “Run” This process will save each Layer Comp as a separate .jpg file (awesomeness!)
    

    export layer comps to jpegs

    

    find your location and Run

12. Open PowerPoint.
13. Insert each .jpg in a separate slide, and, VIOLA! you have a sequential storytelling tool for your sermon or presentation.

I hope this made sense. It sure was fun to create. I’d love to hear how you do this type of thing.