Podcast: The Art Process behind ‘The Biggest Story Bible Storybook’ (Don Clark)

March 30, 2022 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

How to Approach Illustrating Bible Stories

In this special bonus episode, Don Clark discusses what appealed to him (and what scared him) about illustrating the stories of the Bible; his approach and intentions with his artwork—both for kids and adults; and what the artistic process actually looked like over the two years he was working on this project.

The Biggest Story Bible Storybook

The Biggest Story Bible Storybook

Kevin DeYoung

This beautifully illustrated book by Kevin DeYoung combines 104 easy-to-read stories from Scripture with artwork by Don Clark, helping children ages 6–12 learn the unified story of the Bible.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:58 - Getting Started

Matt Tully
Don, thank you so much for joining me today on The Crossway Podcast.

Don Clark
It’s my pleasure. I’m excited to be here. It’s been a long time coming.

Matt Tully
Yes. Crossway and you have a long history together, and it is fun to have this monumental project coming out in the bag, so to speak.

Don Clark
Yeah, I can’t believe it. I just finished last October and here we are in March. When you’re working on something this big, you think about this moment a little bit: Oh gosh, there’s going to be a time when it’s done. But it’s so far off that you don’t give it too much thought. But here we are.

Matt Tully
I wanted to ask about that because I would imagine that for someone embarking on a project of this scale—you illustrated over one hundred Bible stories and every page has illustration on it in this big book—I could imagine that would feel pretty monumental and maybe intimidating and overwhelming, especially at the beginning. How did you get started?

Don Clark
That’s a great question because I was kind of in fear for a long time. I had worked on The Biggest Story—the first book that we put out in 2016 or 2015—and that was going to be like, This is my Bible. I’m tasked with creating this work of art, it’s going to be out there, and I’m excited. Boom. Then, Josh Dennis and I got to talking and we asked, What if we did the entire Bible? We really expanded on what we had done and we agreed on how long that would take. Once we kind of locked that in and it was green-lit, it’s like, Okay, I have to start this eventually. I always say that, as an artist, the very best time of the project is once you get the project, or you’ve agreed on the project—between that time and when you start is the best. In your mind, it’s like, This can be anything. This is going to be awesome. You see it in your mind and you’re optimistic, and then you actually have to put pen to paper (or pen to tablet) and then start. That’s where the challenge begins. I will say I was scared to start because I did know exactly—I had developed a style for the first book. A lot of artists don’t like to go back to old styles or revisit and create these sequels. We’re always trying to—

Matt Tully
You were, in some cases, revisiting the same stories.

Don Clark
Yeah, exactly. Every artist is trying to progress and get better and we always look at the last thing we did as something that we want to be better at.

Matt Tully
Do you tend to be pretty self-critical as you look back at stuff you’ve done?

Don Clark
One hundred percent. It’s so funny because people come to the studio or they come to our house and they’re like, Oh, cool! Did you do that? And I’m like, No, I didn’t do any of this because I don’t like any of my stuff hanging up. I’m like, No, these are all from friends and other artists that I like. The challenge was how do I progress in this style and not feel beholden to some of the things that I had done in the other book that I maybe don’t like now.

Matt Tully
I think anyone who is familiar with the original The Biggest Story and compares that to The Biggest Story Storybook will probably notice that there are some subtle stylistic changes and differences. It does feel like its a progression in certain respects. Don, you’re an award-winning artist, you’ve worked with some large clients like Pixar, Disney, Lego, Apple, Nike—kind of the who’s who of some of the most influential organizations in our culture today—so I wonder, in light of all that cool stuff you have gotten to do for those kinds of companies, what was it about working on a story Bible for kids? How does that fit into that corpus of work that you’ve done?

Don Clark
Good question. I’ve been extremely blessed over twenty years to work with some really cool clients and awesome people. For me, the idea of creating a children’s Bible with a certain limitation on it, in terms of style or working with a publisher that might be a little bit more overbearing in terms of what it needed to look like, that didn’t interest me. What interested me was working with Crossway and you guys just really trusting me. That was huge. Creating a Bible, in my mind, had always been bucket list material, but in my own way in terms of the style I wanted to see. My favorite children’s Bibles are all from the 50s and 60s, and I have a ton of them. I collect them.

Matt Tully
What’s behind that desire, that bucket-list status of illustrating a children’s Bible?

Don Clark
As a Christian, it is the book that we base our life on. Just that. The fact that I have all these old Bibles at my house that are just beautifully illustrated, and to think that if I ever got the chance to do one now in the style that I envision would be extremely special. And partnering with Crossway is a double whammy. Again, if you fast forward twenty years from now, people I think will hopefully see this project as being something where they say, Yeah, I love all the Invisible Creature stuff and the stuff that Don did, but the Bible is really special. We have it in our home. It’s definitely a legacy type project.

Matt Tully
I think the illustrations really do compliment well Kevin’s style of writing. There’s this winsome playfulness, and yet a seriousness with which he approaches the material. I think your illustrations match that.

Don Clark
My goal was I didn’t want it to feel cartoony, fluffy. There are a lot of children’s Bibles now where everything is much more cartoony. It’s kind of like, Here are these chubby guys with beards. What I wanted to do was create something beautiful that created dialogue between parents and kids, and created dialogue among people. The best pieces of art that are targeted towards kids are also targeted towards the parents. Your favorite movies, your favorite Pixar movies, your favorite family movies are things that adults love as much as kids.

Matt Tully
That’s a distinguishing mark of a Pixar movie it seems like. They do work on multiple levels, for younger kids all the way up to adults.

Don Clark
And that was my goal. I didn’t want to create something that was pandering or felt dumbed down, silly, or humorous. Some of the way in which Kevin wrote is funny, and I like how there is some humor in the book, but the art stands alone. If he likened something to more of a modern time object, like an ice cream cone, I don’t need to illustrate an ice cream cone. I want to keep everything in this world—a hyper-stylized view of what it was like back then. Again, if there’s any humor, letting the story that he’s written just handle the humor aspect. I want to create something that obviously is inspired by what he’s written, but tells a broader story.

09:09 - Ending Well

Matt Tully
I think it’s always fascinating to get a glimpse into someone’s craft and their process of doing that craft, especially when it’s at a high level. I wonder if you could actually walk us through some of your process when it comes to one of the illustrations in the book, one that I really liked and appreciated and was drawn towards. It actually happens to be the final illustration in the book. I thought maybe I could read Kevin’s words and then I would love to hear you describe that and explain how you came up with that (see the illustration). Kevin writes on this final page of the book: “Then Jesus had one last message for John, and it's one last message for us. ‘Count on it,’ the snake crusher said, ‘I am coming soon.’ And so we say, ‘Amen! Come, Lord Jesus.’” Walk us through how you thought about illustrating this.

Don Clark
Any illustrator's dilemma or challenge is how do you end a book. Obviously, Kevin has already written this, but from my standpoint, how do I interpret this in a meaningful or moving way? The entire book that I’ve created is extremely colorful.

Matt Tully
That’s kind of a distinguishing feature of your style.

Don Clark
Right. I’m a maximalist to the fullest extent! I don’t like to leave any space on the page untouched. So, on this last page, I really focused on “I am coming soon.” I have already portrayed Jesus in so many moments throughout the New Testament. What I love about the freedom in this book that I was able to be given from Crossway is that I do juxtapose conceptual ideas with more straightforward moments that are actually in Scripture, whether it’s just Jesus talking to someone. Being able to go from page to page and going, This is much more conceptual. This is something I can discuss with my kid, and this is something that is more straightforward.

Matt Tully
The nativity scene: you see Jesus, you see Mary and Joseph—they’re all there. There are animals around them. It’s pretty straightforward. Then other illustrations are far less straightforward.

Don Clark
Any of the pages, I would just essentially read it and re-read it and re-read it as I was working.

Matt Tully
Were you reading more than just Kevin’s words? Were you also going back to the Biblical text itself?

Don Clark
It depends on what the chapter was. Typically, and for ninety percent of it, I would say I focused just on what Kevin had written because if you’re reading this to a child, you usually don’t have Scripture sitting there to go back to explain what I’ve drawn. I wanted the kids—or anyone—to be able to sit and read this book alone and understand what’s going on. There are some stories in here—like Nebuchadnezzar and the writing on the wall. I knew this story, but I didn’t know it super well, so going back and looking at how this was depicted artistically was interesting. Just seeing a hand writing on a wall in the Scripture, it’s kind of confusing. When you read it you’re like, Okay, um . . . .

Matt Tully
Like, what exactly does this look like?

Don Clark
Exactly. How is this going to look? So, taking liberty in the style, but as you’re reading this, hopefully it’s making sense what is happening. But I also don’t want to deviate too much from what Scripture says and how it’s been portrayed in the past. I’m trying to do my own take on it. But going back to the end of the book, I felt like less was more because I’ve filled this book up with so much art that I wanted to have this be a moment. Christ says, "I’m coming soon" so I wanted this hopeful outlook on life—your future, the afterlife—but also juxtapose that with our world and some of the darkness that is in our world with the light that is coming over, that is beyond, that we’re hopeful about. Basically, my thought was, How do I create hope in the form of a person in Christ? So I have a little silhouette of him.

Matt Tully
For those who haven’t looked at the image yet, almost the entire spread is black and it’s this silhouette of the earth. You see this small silhouette of Christ coming up over the horizon. It’s amazing how it kind of pulls your eye up towards that corner of the page.

Don Clark
I’m happy with how it came out because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do for the last spread. But again, that’s the beauty. I think every artist needs some sort of box. If you’re given, Hey, just do whatever you want and there’s nothing written down, specifically for me that’s tough. I think a lot of artists want some sort of guide, whether that’s color scheme or, in this case, a short paragraph from Kevin was all I needed to jump in.

Matt Tully
On that point, were you always creating the art after you had read Kevin’s words? Did it always happen with Kevin first and then you?

Don Clark
Yes, totally. I would get Kevin’s stuff first. Crossway would paginate everything for me so I had the pages. For instance, if it’s Jonah or Daniel in the lion’s den, I already knew there was going to be a spread for those. Regardless of what he had written, that was going to be in there. Then, with some of the more abstract or lesser known stories, I was definitely going off of what he’s written. It all came down to what he had written and making sure that it all made sense.

16:02 - Revisions

Matt Tully
Was there a particular illustration, or even maybe section of Scripture, that was especially hard for you to illustrate? Was there one that maybe you found yourself stuck for some reason, or going back and making changes repeatedly?

Don Clark
I was making changes all the time. I’ve told this story a handful of times, but I felt like the book was getting better as I was working on it because, again, ask any artist and the more the working on something the better it’s getting. So, I worked on this straight for a year and a half—more like two years, but definitely focused on it for a year and a half. You go back and you’re like, That does not look nearly as good as it should, or nearly as good as what I’m working on right now at the end of this book, so I would go back constantly. Actually, when I was finished with the New Testament, I went back and redid a ton of the Old Testament. In my mind now when I look through this, it feels cohesive, it feels like it’s all part of one thing. In the reader’s point of view, they’re not going to notice these little things, but I do, and it feels much more cohesive.

Matt Tully
When you finished the New Testament and you felt that thought of, Ah, I wonder if I should go back, was that a sense of, Yes! I’m excited! I get to go back and fix some stuff? Or was it more of a feeling of dread like, I need to do this. I wish I didn’t have to?

Don Clark
No, I look at every project, specifically this one, as joy and also a need. I have to do this, but I’m grateful that I get to. There was so much in the creation story that I really wanted to get conceptual and hyper-colorful. When I think of God’s creation and those moments where he’s creating things, like the split-second beauty of creating animals, the earth, and man, what would that look like in this world? That stuff was fun to go back into because I wasn’t pleased with how it was looking once I got to the New Testament. I thought it could be a lot better.

18:07 - Conveying Emotion

Matt Tully
How do you think about that distinction between the art trying to communicate sort of a rational message or a truth about something that happened, vs. the art also trying to convey emotion or a sense of things? How did you think about that interplay between those two things?

Don Clark
I thought about that on every page. How can I create some sense of emotion with the story that is going to draw in the reader or the listener? Again, it was just about how can I make this the most beautiful thing I can do on this page? Again, I want folks to get lost in the art. I want it to look how I thought it should look and needed to look. It’s just one of those things where I wanted to see this thing in the world, so I was like, Well, I guess I’m going to do it. So, whatever it took. If it took Jesus feeding the 5,000, then I’m going to need to draw a lot of people. I worked for like four days just on that one page. Typically, I would spend a full day on a page, so I would give myself eight to ten hours per page, and then I knew that there were going to be some that were going to take longer. That was one of them where I’m illustrating eighty people or something.

19:42 - A Hopeful and Optimistic Style

Matt Tully
How would you describe the style of the art in the book? For someone like me, I appreciate art and I appreciate beauty, but I’m not super familiar with the right terms for some of these things.

Don Clark
Terms are weird too. I kind of hate them. One of my least favorite words on the planet is retro. I’m never trying to create something that looks like I was trying to ape a style or something. My love language, when it comes to art, is the mid-century. That’s just this term that gets thrown around a lot, but it’s basically the optimism of post-war America.

Matt Tully
1950s and 1960s.

Don Clark
Right. We’re going to have jet packs, cars that look like spaceships, and we’re very optimistic. Everything was bright and beautiful, like the World’s Fair. That is the world that I love. I’ve said this before: I know that that era was not perfect and it wasn’t all like that. However, the aspiration to be that way, and kind of a more united and optimistic viewpoint on the future, was something that I love. So I surround myself with that stuff because I think that’s just beautiful.

Matt Tully
I feel like that’s not really in vogue these days. Even in the last couple of decades, there’s an interest in dystopianism and there’s a cynicism about the future. Is that something that you’ve wrestled with at all?

Don Clark
In other projects that I’m working on, that is something that we talk about a lot. I do a lot of commercial work for clients that are in that space. They’re in the tech space trying to create beautiful things that are going to enhance our life here. But juxtaposing that with how the future is portrayed in film. We don’t want Bladerunner. We want to go see Bladerunner in the theaters, but we don’t want that. I like the idea of seeing the future as an exciting thing. As a Christian, that’s even a whole other lane, but that’s my favorite stuff. I’m drawn to optimistic art I guess. So, in answering your question about the style, I am heavily influenced by that era. What was kind of cool about this project is it kind of took on a life of its own. I kind of developed and created this world that I didn’t really plan on.

Matt Tully
It’s not like you had the exact style in your mind beforehand. Did it kind of develop over time organically?

Don Clark
The Biggest Story from like seven years ago (I can’t believe it), that set the template for how this would look.

Matt Tully
Yeah, it’s in that same family.

Don Clark
So, a lot of my figuring out how this was going to look happened already. However, I wanted to progress and make this way better than that book and just a true next edition of what that could look like. In many ways, I had already set the stage years ago, but then coming back to this it was like I really needed to step it up basically.

23:04 - A Family History of Illustration

Matt Tully
Illustration is part of your family history. You and your brother, Ryan, founded your studio Invisible Creature together a number of years back. Going back even further, your grandfather worked for nearly three decades as an illustrator for NASA in the 50s and 60s. Reflect on that: What was it about your grandfather’s legacy? How does that loom in your mind as an illustrator today?

Don Clark
It’s huge because he was proof-positive that you can actually make a living in the arts. He wasn’t a fine artist doing gallery events; he was blue collar, punched a clock, commercial illustrator for NASA. He was the only guy that we knew who was doing that. All of our friends' dads and grandpas were all more blue collar, worked at the mill, doctors. This was something that was like, Oh! It’s actually attainable to make a living doing art. From an early age, that was ingrained in us.

Matt Tully
What kind of illustrations was he doing for NASA?

Don Clark
He was multidisciplinary, meaning he could draw in many different styles. He would do schematics for rockets and all kinds of different—

Matt Tully
Technical schematics?

Don Clark
Technical schematics, but then he would also do paintings of futuristic things, like what would NASA look like in the future. They’re beautiful. I have a ton of it, there’s some stuff on our site, and then I have a blog post from years ago (you can probably dig it up) that has a bunch of his stuff. He would also do more cartoony, humorous stuff and do editorial pieces as freelance—like, political cartoons and stuff like that for the local paper. He was all over the place stylistically, but definitely if you see his stuff, it fits into that 50s and 60s vibe. He passed away in 1996 I think, and then his wife (my grandmother) passed away maybe eight years ago. A gentleman came to the service and they were long-time family friends and he was a professor at a school for whom my grandfather had done a bunch of illustrations. I was talking to him after the service and he said, We actually have not updated any of our stuff from when your grandfather did it because it’s that good, and we just don’t want to change it. I thought that was super cool that decades later they wanted to still keep the same art because they felt like it was sufficient.

Matt Tully
Are there any things that your grandfather did that you look at and you’re just kind of in awe of or you feel like, Man, I would love to take a stab at that kind of thing at some point?

Don Clark
I look at his stuff and I think I can never even get close to how good he was. The way that he was able to draw humans is amazing. Drawing humans is extremely difficult, as evidenced by how stylized they are in The Biggest Story. I was able to simplify quite a bit. As an illustrator, hands are hard to draw. It’s horses, bicycles, and hands.

Matt Tully
What is it about them that is difficult, for all the non-artists?

Don Clark
Bicycles, and horses actually, we know exactly what that looks like in our mind. We’re like, It’s a horse! But then you go try and draw a horse and you’re like, That doesn’t look like a horse! It’s the same with a bicycle. Everything has to be in its right place—your legs and your feet—but then you’ve got this piece of metal that all has to fit. Whenever you go to draw a bike, you’re like, Oh, I have to erase the leg because the pedal is right there. So, he would draw hands and people beautifully. Everything looked so elegant and effortless. I feel like my stuff is just like, Gosh, I feel like this guy suffered through this art! Mine is more painstakingly difficult because a lot of times I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. But he was just a pro basically.

Matt Tully
It’s interesting to hear that you have your own story of working with NASA and doing some work for them that actually is disconnected, at least initially, from your grandfather. Will you share that?

Don Clark
Yeah, it’s crazy. A buddy of mine works at JPL in southern California and they were doing a series of prints for what was called “Visions of the Future.” It was twelve different posters that was kind of like a calendar that you can actually download for free on their site.

Matt Tully
Listener, here’s your chance to get some Don Clark art.

Don Clark
Just type in “JPL Visions of the Future” and you’ll be able to find hi-res PDFs. The idea was, Hey, do you want to do three posters? I’m like, You’re asking me to do three posters for NASA? Do you know how big this is for us? He’s like, Oh, no, I didn’t. I didn’t even think about it. I’m like, Dude, my grandfather was an illustrator there. This is really special.

Matt Tully
A dream come true.

Don Clark
A dream come true. Whether it’s subconscious or not, when you see that NASA logo, you kind of get excited because it just brings up so much optimism. It was a monumental time in the 60s and what we’ve done since then. We were able to do three posters and there’s a long story that I’m not going to get into now, but they kind of went viral. If people don’t know who we are—and most people don’t—a lot of people have seen that poster. This happens a lot: Oh! I’ve seen your NASA poster. They kind of equate us with those posters, which is fine. That’s great. That’s definitely the most popular thing we’ve done.

Matt Tully
What a cool connection with your grandfather too. Is there a style of illustration that you would like to try your hand at that is very different than what you currently do, but maybe you just don’t have the courage to try or you want to try but need to find the time?

Don Clark
Since I’ve been doing this over twenty years, I’ve figured out what I’m good at and what I’m not good at. I love typography and I love lettering, but I’m just not good at it. There are people out there who are better and that’s what they do.

Matt Tully
With that said, you do some pretty interesting drop caps for The Biggest Story.

Don Clark
Totally, but I’m basing that off of a pre-existing typeface. Some of my friends are just amazing letterers. It’s a work of art when they’re creating a font.

Matt Tully
That’s the kind of thing that many of us probably don’t notice. We don’t realize the work that goes into that.

Don Clark
Subconsciously, if you don’t know what a font is, you still know what’s beautiful and what’s not. If I showed you Papyrus vs. something else, you would say, Oh, the Papyrus one looks worse.

Matt Tully
All the Papyrus fans out there are like, I don’t like this.

Don Clark
Yeah, Avatar fans, sorry. I think I’m always trying to progress. I’m always trying to push and do something better than the last thing, but I do know my sandbox. There are aspects of art that I would love to dive into and tinker around with, but I think it still fits in the sandbox that I’m in.

30:33 - Illustrative Tools Used

Matt Tully
Can you describe the tools that you use? You mentioned earlier that you use a tablet and a stylus. Elaborate on that spectrum of tools that you use.

Don Clark
I’m sad to say that I’m one hundred percent digital now. I’ve got paper and pencils at the studio, but I don’t use them. I use a Wacom Cintiq to paint. For the designers out there, any kind of imagery that I’m creating I’m using the Cintiq; so I’m basically painting on a screen. The way that brushes are now digitally are amazing.

Matt Tully
So you’re using a single stylus that then you can switch out the digital brushes.

Don Clark
With The Biggest Story I only used three brushes for the entire book. I’m just going back and forth changing stuff. Obviously, with Photoshop and the world in which we live, it’s just extremely easy to change colors and go back. Back in my grandfather’s day, he would create a painting and then present the actual painting to the client. Then, the client would go, Can we change this and change this? And then he would go back and make a new painting. We live in amazing times in terms of commercial art.

Matt Tully
I would imagine the planning then that they must have had to do ahead of time, like sketches and—

Don Clark
That’s funny that you bring that up because my sketches are terrible. Every time we start working with a new client I actually send them a folder of sketches to final. NASA is in there and a couple of other bigger projects.

Matt Tully
So it’s examples from the past.

Don Clark
Examples of stuff that we’ve done that go, Hey, you’re going to see my sketch and it’s going to be really rough. It’s going to show compositionally what I’m thinking, but when I get in there and work on final art it’s really going to start to look polished. I might have a better idea and things might move a little bit. The sketch is just to show you where I’m leaning. So, I have a folder that’s called “New Client Process” or something, and I send that to them so that there’s no shock. That’s happened before where I’ve developed a sketch and then they get the final and they’re like, I thought it was going to be black and white!* So anyway, I really try to alleviate any kind of questions when it comes to that. My sketches can be more cartoony than my final work. What I love about Photoshop and Illustrator is that what’s helped honed my style is actually the constraints in which the programs work. So, using Vectr with Illustrator and using those tools, you’re able to develop a style based in Illustrator. That’s your wheelhouse, so when you get out of Illustrator and you’re just drawing it, it does have a different feel.

Matt Tully
You’ve said that a couple of times, that these constraints—the box and the limit that you’re put in—can actually be really helpful for creating beautiful art.

Don Clark
I need something.

Matt Tully
I’ve heard other artists say things like that, that limits are the fertile ground for creativity, or something like that. Unpack that for us.

Don Clark
We did album art for years. We still do some, but for five years straight we were just doing album packaging. The most daunting, nerve-wracking projects that would come in would be a self-titled album with no art direction.

Matt Tully
It’s whatever you want!

Don Clark
There’s no title to the album—

Matt Tully
The non-artist in me would be like, Oh, that sounds great! You can make up whatever you want to do.

Don Clark
No, because the problem is a lot of musicians and clients don’t know what they want until they see it, so then they’re like, No, we don’t like that. I love working with great art directors—art directors who have great ideas, but also trust you. Crossway is a perfect example of that. I have other clients that are like that—Target, Warby Parker—and other clients that are like, Here’s kind of what we’re thinking . . . . Warby Parker for instance: We want to create a mural for one of our stores. We want to feature books and glasses. That’s enough for me. So then I pitch three ideas based on what I think would look cool. They’re obviously coming to us for a reason, so there’s trust already, and I’m tasked with creating three ideas that I like that could work and then we go from there. I came up with an idea for Warby Parker, and specifically, I came up with these creatures, monsters with glasses that were into books. I didn’t know if it would fly. I had two other ideas that I liked that didn’t feature characters, and they loved the monster one. It’s in Capitol Hill, Seattle, it’s a great project, but that’s an example of they gave us just enough, but also trusted us to do our thing. What happens, too, that is not great is someone who doesn’t know who we are but hires us. That happens a lot where someone told them about us, they’ve seen one piece, and then—there’s this famous story of Picasso at a coffee shop and he’s with a friend talking. He’s sketching on a napkin, they start to leave, and he wads it up and puts it in his pocket. This woman comes over and says, Can I have the napkin? You’re going to just throw it away. He answers, Yeah, $20,000. She says, What? It’s just a napkin. The idea is that it’s not. I bring that up to say that when you hire someone who has been doing this for a long time, you’re also getting that wisdom of twenty years of what we’ve been doing and kind of going, Okay, I’m bringing in this group of people that kind of know what they’re doing. I didn’t know what I was doing twenty years ago, but at this point I’ve got a better hand on certain things. I’m hoping that you walk along in the process with us and we have some cool ideas. If there isn’t that trust and it’s like, No, I can just find other artists to do what I want, that’s just part of what we do.

37:11 - A Parent’s Hope for This Book

Matt Tully
Maybe as a last question, you’re a parent. You and your wife and three kids, so you know what it’s like to parent kids and the challenges that come with that, the joys that come with that, and the responsibility we have as Christian parents to teach our kids who God is, teach them about his love for them and what it means to love him in return. I wonder if you could speak to the parents listening right now. That’s this overriding focus that we have as parents in our lives. What is your hope for this book in particular and how it impacts the lives of parents and the lives of families as they read it together?

Don Clark
That’s awesome. I really hope that families enjoy this. I was talking to you about this yesterday, but I want people to—kids and adults alike—my biggest takeaway for them is that they see the truths of the Bible and that they see how much love and passion that I put into the art and how this is real to me. This is the most important thing to me. I’m really giving everything I can to make these pages as beautiful as possible. When it comes to having kids and being parents—Christian parents specifically—it’s a daunting task because you can do everything “right” as a parent that you think is the way to go, and maybe it doesn’t work out. Maybe your kids stray or things happen and all you can do is pray that things are going to work out. My wife and I have tried to just lead by example and surround them with what we believe the truth is. We can’t teach them any other way. The idea is that we need to teach them in a way that they make it their own and not just this thing that their parents believe, but also they need to ask the hard questions and we need to go through it together. If I don’t have an answer, we’re going to pray about it, we’re going to look to other people who might have questions, and just be really transparent with our kids in terms of I don’t have all the answers. Christ has all the answers. I can’t save you. As your dad I can’t save you, and your mom can’t save you. We can do everything in our power to protect you and to raise you right, but there’s only one person that can save you. What’s happened is it’s just amazing to see my kids genuinely love the Lord, are studying the Bible on their own, and it’s just stuff that y wife and I are like, I can’t believe it! I wasn’t that kid. My daughter is seventeen and I’ll walk by going to get some coffee or something and she’s got the Bible open on her own, taking notes.

Matt Tully
There’s nothing better than seeing that.

Don Clark
I can’t believe it. I’m just so proud of her. And my son is the same way, all my kids. But again, there was never this, It’s because mom and dad tell you too. This is what we’re doing. You just go. We’re going to go to church and do this. It’s never been that. It’s like, this is what we get to do, this is the truth. We love you more than anything, and because of that, we’re going to teach you the truth.

Matt Tully
You mentioned the value of asking those hard questions. That’s something that I do love about the book and about Kevin’s words and even about the illustrations and the art. I think it’s going to prompt so many questions and good conversations. This book feels like it’s only that starting point for parents and kids to talk about these stories in the Bible, talk about what God has done for us. It’s this great first step that gets those conversations going.

Don Clark
Totally. This might be the first Bible that a lot of kids hear being read to them, or even reading, and so I didn’t take that for granted either. I wanted to make sure that every page was true to what is in Scripture, but in a hyper-stylized, artistic way that is beautiful.

Matt Tully
Don, thank you so much for taking the time today to talk with us a little bit about your process and about this project. We appreciate it.

Don Clark
My pleasure. It’s been a blast. I’m so thankful to be here.

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