This month’s illustrations draw from a rich source of inspiration: light and guidance. There was a very real danger in the design process of repeating a predictable representation of light and darkness, one which I very much hope I have avoided. I’ll let you be the judge of that, let me know what you think in the comments below. Here are the five verses I have chosen:
materials used
I’ve returned to using the full set of Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils for these illustrations.
Adding vinyl transfers and acrylic ink for Bible journaling pages
For the first time ever, I have used a vinyl transfer in (on?) an illustration. For the text over the black background in the fourth illustration, I wanted a crisp white outline to the lettering. I’ve previously tried using Posca pens, but at least two layers are needed to get it opaque on a dark outline. As hard as I try, I don’t get it looking as uniform and crisp as I would like.
So this time, I cut out the lettering from white and gold vinyl and used a light-stick transfer paper to apply to the Bible page. A couple of tips for page preparation: the black is acrylic ink which seals the page and thickens it slightly as well as being slightly slicker for peeling off adhesive transfer paper; and spraying the ink with a matte varnish helps unify the black brush strokes and further strengthens and seals the paper. I was delighted with how it turned out and that I didn’t do any damage. I will be using the technique sparingly, however, as it does add some bulk to the page.
Getting guidance from an unlikely source
Every now and then we all need a bit of guidance. As you know, I have turned to AI a fair number of times for recent journaling ideas. Some of the work behind these illustrations are no exception. I don’t feel it’s cheating – it’s just ‘someone’ to bounce ideas off. After all, there’s no one else in the studio if I wanted to explore ideas with.
There’s quite an art to getting what you’d like out of an AI, so I thought I would share a couple of the prompts that I used to get started. I use ChatGPT, currently the latest model, GPT5.
I have the full set of Faber/Castell Polychromos colouring pencils. I am using Color Cubes to choose colour schemes for my Bible journaling illustrations. I’d like to give you hex codes for the colours and for you to recommend the closest pencil to that colour. Ideally, you will check all the pencils you recommend will complement each other in terms of warmth of tone.
I say ‘started’ advisedly – ChatGPT doesn’t get everything right first go. The full palette of Polychromos pencils cover 120 colours and of course, the AI is reliant on digital information being available. It is willing to learn though, so I just told it where it went wrong. I also had it choose a random number and used that to select my Color Cube card and colour palette.
Ok, some tweaks please. No 2 needs to be greyer, no 4 needs to be darker and redder as does no 5
Another way I have used AI is for ideas on how to apply the colour palette to the illustrative elements in my design:
I’d like to use twilight black and purples to create the sky to go behind the silhouette. Coloured pencils will be fine. Let me know which pencils to use and in which order from top to behind figure.
There’s quite a lot of media attention in the UK at the moment about the water and energy requirements of AI data centres. Out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT how much energy and water my illustration queries might have used. The answer was reassuring: about the same as leaving an LED bulb on for a few hours, and less water than it takes to stream a half-hour of video. That made me feel much better — especially since planting a pot of herbs more than covers the CO₂ from dozens of chats
And its final comment – “In short: your journaling pages probably consume more pencil shavings than carbon 🌍”. Uncanny – lots of pencil sharpening happened during these illustrations. How did it know?
Other acknowledgements
- hand holding flashlight by Oleksandr Panasovskyi from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)
- Silhouette traced from Purpose Stock photos by Vecteezy
