A Little Bible Art

A few months ago I bought a Bible for journaling. Being the daughter of a Pastor, we had many Bibles in our home growing up. We were taught never to put anything on top of a Bible or to write in it. It took me years before I could even write in pencil in a margin, or underline a verse. It seemed so wrong. But I have come to realize that legalism about a printed book is not worship -- and not how to help me remember things. I took sermon notes for years -- but couldn't relate to them once they were stored away. I needed reminders in the actual book I was reading and studying. So notes became commonplace.

I realize that many have differing views on writing in Bibles, let alone coloring, stamping, drawing, or painting. But it's not a CORE issue. It's not about the Gospel, or about what we believe about God. He is not any less my God because I have a separate Bible that I now draw and stamp and paint in. He is MORE my God because he has created me to be CREATIVE. And if art gets me into His Word more, that's a GOOD thing. It's not taking anything away from my reverence or awe or fear (and I mean that in the God-fearing way) or even my study, it is increasing my time focusing and meditating on what the Word is saying to ME. And being a visual person, it helps me to remember verses and lessons better, just as music based on scripture does.

Anyway, I felt like I needed to preface this post with that. It's certainly a departure from what you usually see here, but I am loving working in my Bible as a journal for artistic thoughts about life and how I fit in.

I told some journaling friends I would post some step photos from a project I completed this morning. So here they are!

I prepped my page with Martha Stewart's White Gesso. I wanted to prevent as much bleed through as I could, and knew I wanted to watercolor on my page. I applied it with a brush and let it dry - it was very quick. I used my heat gun as an added drying source to be sure. I stamped my verse and poppies from Sweet 'n Sassy's Precious Poppies.

Next I tested my Kuretake watercolors on each flower to see what color I might like for each one, as the thin onion skin paper changes the colors a bit. I used an acrylic block as my palette to water down the color - again for bleedthrough.


I completed each flower with a slightly different mix to see what I might like.

Finally, I added some blues for a background, and then finished off the page with some Glimmermist spray for a little sheen. I had made the matching bookmark several weeks back, and wanted a matching style for the Proverbs page. This is the end of a chapter, so no text was covered by my design.

What do you think?