team effort

COLOR the CAROLS: music and art to celebrate Christmas

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Color the Carols COMBO by Eddie and Pearl LewisIt’s the first of October and an exciting day in the Lewis household. It’s RELEASE DAY for the  COLOR the CAROLS COMBO. This COMBO includes the adult-friendly coloring book COLOR the TRUMPET CAROLS and the instrumental Christmas CD UNADORNED TRUMPET CAROLS. The COMBO is the result of a joint effort by my super talented husband, Eddie Lewis, and myself.

Over recent years, our family has been noticing how ragged and worn-out people look as the countdown to Christmas progresses. The festive season has become an exhausting time which many people have grown to dread: the endless shopping for gifts, the over-consumption of unhealthy food, office parties, stressful family get-togethers, church productions, crazy traffic, malls crammed with people, more shopping, and so it continues. By the time Christmas Day arrives, many people just want to crawl into a dark corner behind the Christmas tree and sleep off a month of fatigue and irritation. Where has all the PEACE and JOY that is supposed to be associated with Christmas gone? The Christmas carols advertise this blissful state, yet for many a joyful, peaceful Christmas is just a distant memory from a childhood when things moved slower and life was simpler.

Can we recapture that Christmas joy and peace described in the Bible and the many carols? Can we experience it again this Christmas? Eddie and I set out to discover if this was possible. We wanted to create something that would give people the opportunity to shut out the noise and stress of the festive season for at least a little while each day. Our music and illustration skills came together in what we can best describe as a “Christmas experience”. That may sound a little strange, but that is what makes this product what it is: a soothing balm for weary souls. The combo is designed to immerse you in the Christmas story, by soaking your senses in the story. For a little time each day, as you use this COMBO, you can become part of the Christmas story, rejoicing with the angels and shepherds, and at peace with Joseph and Mary. For a little time each day, as you journey through the COMBO using music and the creative application of color, you can leave behind the craziness of the Christmas season, and soak yourself in the true meaning of Christmas.

The coloring book (COLOR the TRUMPET CAROLS) takes you through the Christmas story, from the prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ to the fulfillment of the prophecy. Each full-page, hand-drawn illustration is accompanied by a page with the scripture which forms the basis for the drawing. This page also includes an extract from a well-known carol that relates to the scripture and the illustration. To deepen the experience of exploring this scene, this text page also includes reference to one or more (sometimes as many as six) carols from the UNADORNED TRUMPET CAROLS album. It is recommended that you play the CD as you color, and pay particular attention to the referenced carols for that page. (This text page is also framed and includes design elements from the accompanying main illustration, so there is plenty of opportunity to add color.)

There is no shortage of documentation available online to support coloring as a relaxing, stress-reducing activity. (If you want to read more about the impact of art therapy methods such as coloring on health, you can read this blog post.) Music has similar powerful health benefits. By combining music and art (to take advantage of the health and well-being benefits of both streams of creativity) with the uplifting effects of scripture, the  COLOR the CAROLS COMBO offers a unique Christmas-focused experience. When you open the book, turn on the music, and settle down to meditate on one moment in the Christmas story, you choose something better, something more joyful and more peaceful, than the rush and the stress of today’s Christmas season where it is easy to forget WHY we are celebrating. Treat yourself to a worthwhile Christmas experience this year – and then share the joy and peace with others.

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Final Stretch for 2016 Christmas Project

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Christmas Coloring Book by E and P Lewis
Final checks to the illustrations for the Christmas carol coloring book.

Who doesn’t love a cheerfully bright and colorful Christmas? This year, my husband (the embodiment of multi-facetted creativity) and I set out to develop a cheerful, creative product that would embrace the best of Christmas. We wanted this to be a joint creative project that would pool our individual talents, and yield something that would give people a real-time break from all the craziness that Christmas has devolved into. We chose to embark on a project that would blend the visual and hearing senses in an experience that revisits the joy and peace of Christmas. The end of this project is in sight, and the product (which is perfect for gifting) is due for early release in October 2016.

My husband’s half of the project is the listening experience. And it is an experience you will want to have – the music is hauntingly beautiful, and will put you in the mood for the best kind of Christmas. When you have brain-fry and mall-fog from the Christmas shopping that makes you wish you could skip Christmas this year, this is the music you need to be listening to. The CD (which will also be available as a digital download) features a blend of old (read that as VERY well known) and not-so-common Christmas carols. What sets this collection of Christmas carols apart is that the entire album is played exclusively on trumpet. (Technically, it’s not just trumpet, as some of the recordings do feature flugelhorn, but I think of the flugelhorn as falling under the instrumental umbrella of the trumpet.)  The CD is perfect for listening to on its own, but it comes into its own when you couple it with my half of the project.

My responsibility was to develop an adult-friendly coloring book that would amplify the experience of listening to the Christmas carols on the CD. Coloring is a great way to unwind at the end of a stressful day, and the festive season has become notorious for taking our stress levels up more than just a few notches. We wanted to develop a coloring experience that would keep the user’s attention on the Christmas story (after all, that is central to why we celebrate at Christmas), and provide plenty of opportunity to indulge in the use of uplifting, vibrant colors. And we wanted to double the relaxation and joy-infusing effect of the coloring by coupling it with mood-uplifting music.

Each page in the coloring book represents a stage in the development of the Christmas story. Those familiar with my drawing style will know that this book won’t look like most of the coloring books you find stacked up on the shelves at the grocery checkout. I like freestyle drawing, and the blending of reality with the abstract. This book is an expression of how I see the Christmas story: a little humor, a little abstract patterning, many fun spaces to color, and a lot of Jesus. And each page is directly related to one or more of the carols on the accompanying CD. Each full-page illustration comes with a list of the carols that are referenced by the illustration, an extract from a carol, and the scripture that forms the foundation for the illustration (and the carols).

With the release date set for October 2016, we are definitely in the final stretch. The music has been recorded, the illustrations are finished, and the final product is coming together. The combo product will initially be sold through Tiger Music, an online music store that ships internationally, but you will be able to buy the CD and the coloring book separately at a later stage. Stay updated by subscribing to my blog (there’s a button on the side of this page), or to my husband’s blog.

If you are looking for a Christmas gift that is cheerful, uplifting, colorful, joy-inducing, stress-relieving, and plain FUN to use, this CD and coloring book combo fits the bill.

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