Branching Out Fine Art

Album Cover:"O Come, Emmanuel"

Clients: Hollie Schlueter & Jeremy RodriguezDate: September 2026﻿
Original Artwork: Ink on 140 Lb Paper with Gouache and Acrylic Paint﻿
I created this landscape with deep indigo and black inks applied by pipette. The marks are sporadic and forceful, giving the earth a sense of chaos and unrest. Above it, the deep-blue sky is scattered with stars, including the star announcing Christ’s birth made with Gouache and acrylic paint. Subtle touches of color emerge within the darkness. To me, that color suggests what Christ brings into a troubled landscape —light, life, and hope breaking into the chaos.﻿
Listen to the song here: Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube﻿

THE STORY BEHIND"O Come, Emmanuel"

When the client asked me to create the cover artwork for their version of “O Come, Emmanuel,” they shared three images as inspiration: a single star, the star over Bethlehem, and Christ’s empty tomb. They also asked for the artwork to feel raw and real, without relying on traditional Christmas colors. I carried those ideas with me as I began sketching and exploring possibilities. ﻿
Because this was my first time creating cover art for a song, I began by learning what makes an album cover effective — not only the technical requirements, but also what allows an image to communicate at a small scale. My strongest takeaway was to keep it simple. I also looked at existing covers of “O Come, Emmanuel” on Apple Music and Spotify. Stars, night skies, and shades of blue appeared frequently, so I knew that when I used those familiar elements, I would need to interpret them in a way that felt distinctive ... something that could stand apart while still belonging to the emotional world of the song. ﻿
As I researched the hymn, I became fascinated by its long history. Its roots lie in the ancient “O Antiphons,” seven prayers traditionally sung during the final days of Advent. Each calls upon Christ by a different name: Wisdom, Lord, Root of Jesse, Key of David, Day Spring, King of the Nations, and Emmanuel — God with us.  Read in reverse, the first letters of their Latin titles form the phrase Ero cras: “Tomorrow, I will come.” That discovery became especially meaningful to me. The hymn holds several kinds of waiting at once. It remembers Israel’s longing for the promised Messiah. It expresses our present cry for God to enter the suffering and disorder of our world. And it looks ahead with hope toward Christ’s promised return. The familiar melody adds another layer. Before it was paired with the English hymn in the nineteenth century, it appeared in a fifteenth-century French processional used in connection with burial. Knowing this helped me understand why the music carries such weight ... its sense of sorrow, longing, expectation, and hope. The world can feel heavy and unsettled, and this song does not deny that reality. It gives voice to our plea: Come. Enter this darkness. Be with us. Yet Emmanuel is more than a plea. It is also a promise: God has come. God is with us. And He will come again. ﻿
I created five possible covers from that tension between darkness and light, longing and promise. Throughout the process, I felt drawn to deep blues —not only because they suggest a night sky, but because they hold emotional depth and convey our profound need for God. I repeatedly returned to making marks with ink and a pipette. Unlike a paintbrush, the pipette is difficult to control. It produces broken, irregular lines; the ink runs, pools, and moves unpredictably across the paper. Those raw and imperfect marks felt like an honest way to represent a world in turmoil. Because abstraction and impressionism are the visual languages that come most naturally to me, I did not want to paint anything too literally. I wanted each recognizable element to remain suggestive ... allowing the artwork to communicate something felt as much as something seen.﻿
After scanning the paintings, I prepared each image for use as cover art. Because color translates differently from paper to screen, I made subtle digital adjustments to preserve the mood and visual depth of the original work and feeling of the painting. I also refined a few details for composition and clarity at the small scale of a music cover. 