Bible Journaling: Divine Protection (BJ-34)

Posted on 12th May 2025 by Neil

For this month’s Bible journaling illustrations, I have pulled together five verses on the loose theme of ‘divine protection’. This is the penultimate set of verses chosen with the help of ChatGPT, and potentially the penultimate set of verses I shall be illustrating in my current journaling Bible. The good news is, though, that I have two new Bibles in which to work – more on that in future posts.

Once again, I have used my Color Cubes for palette inspiration (even using a random number generator to pick them) and Faber-Castell Polychromos colouring pencils.

Divine Protection themed Bible journaling by Neil Burley: Judges 6:23

Divine Protection themed Bible journaling by Neil Burley: Matthew 28:20

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Step-by-step Art Journaling: ‘it’s all about perspective’

Posted on 5th May 2025 by Neil

In this month’s art journaling session, it’s all about perspective. During my college course, I completed a sketch with two-point perspective, and it was tough going to get the geometry correct. For the layout in my journal, I stuck with a single vanishing point for my focal point image (see what I did there?). A step-by-step tutorial follows the break – apologies for the lack of video this time, there were technical issues…

It's all about perspective - an art journal layout with a gessoed collaged background and single point perspective coloured images in the foreground.

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Bible Journaling: God’s Guidance (BJ-33)

Posted on 14th April 2025 by Neil

As promised, despite no longer holding Bible journaling sessions at The Studio, I have continued to journal in my own Bible. Here are five more verses, this time on the loose theme of ‘God’s Guidance’. Given there are so few pages left in my journaling Bible, I enlisted the help of ChatGPT to choose verses specifically from these gaps. I cut and pasted the results into my notes and somewhat lazily didn’t check that the translation was the same. Happily, the meanings are identical to my NIV even if the exact wording isn’t the same.

Bible journaling illustration on the theme of God's Guidance based on Isaiah 30:21

Bible journaling illustration on the theme of God's Guidance based on Isaiah 24:4

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Art Journaling: Bargello Masterboard

Posted on 7th April 2025 by Neil

Regular readers of this ‘ere blog know that I am a quilter. This month at the art journal session, we combined mixed media with a quilting technique (which I have yet to try in fabric). We made a watercolour masterboard and then with a lot of slicing and pasting created a bargello-style background in our journals. With some basic stitched panels as a focal point we ended up with this:

Art journal layout using a watercolour masterboard cut and pasted to create a bargello-style background

Rooted in the historical tradition of the Bargello Palace in Florence, Italy, the Bargello quilt pattern is characterized by its use of long, narrow strips of fabric meticulously sewn together. This technique creates an illusion of dynamic movement and depth within the quilt.

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Bible Journaling: Family (BJ-32)

Posted on 10th March 2025 by Neil

I’ve found five verses that referred to us being God’s children and created templates using my normal combination of inspiration and AI image generation. I’ve not used watercolour pencils for a while, so I decided to get them out for these illustrations. Here are my samples, and below the break you can find the download link for my free PDF template for the ‘family’ themed pieces.

Bible journaling illustration on the theme of 'family' - Deuteronomy 14:1a

Bible journaling illustration on the theme of 'family' - Luke 8:21

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Art Journaling: Cloth Collage (with step-by-step tutorial)

Posted on 3rd March 2025 by Neil

When I’m looking for potential techniques and ideas for my art journaling sessions, I often reach for analogue sources: books. For this evening’s session, I took inspiration from ‘101 More Mixed Media Techniques’. In the fabrics & fibers [sic] section, there is information on sticking and covering elements and pages. And so my cloth collage theme was born and this is what I came up with:

Fabric collage art journaling tutorial with stamped calico and matte medium.

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Bible Journaling: Watchful hearts

Posted on 10th February 2025 by Neil

For this month’s Bible journaling theme, I’ve chosen the loose title of ‘watchful hearts’. I’ve tried to collect verses which encourage anticipation of Christ’s return and getting your heart right with God.

Watchful hearts: a Bible journaling illustration for Matthew 24:42

Watchful hearts: a Bible journaling illustration for Matthew 26:39

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Art Journal Session: ‘Industrial Grunge’

Posted on 3rd February 2025 by Neil

This month’s art journaling session was on the theme of ‘industrial grunge’. I thought it would be a great chance to revisit rust effects, drips and runs and also use up some of the matte black vinyl I seem to have inadvertently collected over the years… I also exercised AI skills using Microsoft Designer to create the graffiti and worked with ChatGPT to develop the colour scheme, selecting the base colours with my Nix Mini 3 digital colourimeter. Here’s what I came up with:

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Bible Journaling: a few more pee-pulpit posters

Posted on 2nd February 2025 by Neil

I continue to design Bible journaling posters for display in my church‘s toilets on an (almost) monthly basis. I call it a pee-pulpit and particularly in the gents’, the posters are front and centre. The designs are a combination of AI-generated backgrounds (that take ages to tweak to fit my mental image) and Photoshop techniques I am learning. I think my last update was in June, so here are a few more displayed since then:

Pee-pulpit Bible journaling poster: Psalm 100

Small Group Workshops

Posted on 16th January 2025 by Neil

Looking for something to do with a group of friends? These small group workshops are designed for beginners and artists alike and feature different crafts and techniques. There’s plenty to try from scrapbooking to mixed media, book-making to home decor. For more information, click pics or here.