Bible Journaling: Colour Challenge (BJ-26)

For the first Bible Journaling Session of 2024, we’re having a colour challenge. All of us have our favourite colours that we reach for… Sometimes we can get stuck choosing new palettes and our work becomes a little samey. During our session, we will use different colour palettes to try and break out of our tonal rut. Here are my samples – carry on reading to see the colour palettes I used.

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Bible Journaling; Jeremiah (BJ-25)

It’s time for another Bible Journaling session at The Studio. In a change to the published programme, there is no session tonight – it has been moved to next week (16th Oct) so that more can attend. There are still spaces available: just let me know if you’d like to come. We’ll be working on verses from Jeremiah. As always, the session is suitable for complete beginners to accomplished artists, with templates available for those that aren’t brave enough to do their own thing from the start. I’m setting a ‘one colour challenge’ and there’s the opportunity to add some sparkle to your pages. Here are the examples for the evening:

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Bible Journaling: Acts (BJ-24)

In our Bible journaling session on Monday evening, we’ll be exploring verses from Acts. Free downloadable templates for these illustrations are available from my online shop. As normal, the evening starts at 7:30pm, costs £5 and will feature a new technique of using pastel pencils for colouring. Suitable for beginners, and if you don’t have a Bible to work in you can work on paper and make a bookmark. Book your place now 🙂

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Last minute commissions

It turns out that commissions seem to come like stereotypical buses – none for ages and then two at once. I had the pleasure of accepting two very different commissions last week. The only thing was – they were both last minute with a very short time constraint. I did some juggling and evening work but fit them in and delivered both on time. Here’re pics of the projects:

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Bible Journaling: Serve (BJ-23)

This month’s Bible journaling session used ‘serve’ as its theme, with five new illustration templates made available. It took me ages to find the right inspiration for the images, but it was worth the effort. I have also got hold of some new fonts, courtesy of Creative Fabrica’s daily gifts and freebies, so they snuck into the designs as well. Here are the five illustrations:

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Bible Journaling: By request (BJ-22)

I’m a bit behind on posting my Bible journaling templates, sorry about that. First up, last month’s session was based on verses that were ‘by request’. I received four nominated verses and chose the last to complete the set. I also admit to rejigging one of my older templates, so you may recognise it.

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Arts in Worship: Crosses

I’ve had a few problems with my laser cutter over the last six weeks or so… One of the cables was causing intermittent faults. The presumption was that after four years of use, it was gradually fracturing. I managed to keep the machine limping on until I replaced the cable this week. As a result, I’ve had to feed projects into the machine through a slot so that the lid was barely lifted – an interesting exercise.

It would have been fine if I had not been asked to do several projects in those weeks. A small group craft session for church folk, the ‘Be Still’ evening and a large group craft session for my church’s retired men’s group. All of these needed kitting out with laser-cut items.

The projects

Here are the projects I designed and crafted for the small group and the men’s group. They feature crosses for the Easter season. Both are available as workshops at the Studio for groups of up to eight people. To book, just get in contact with me.

Easter crosses laser-cut from eucalyptus plywood
Easter cross made with wood stirrers
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Arts in Worship: Be Still

I was asked to run a craft table at a recent ‘Be Still’ community event at my church. The aim of the evening was to take the chance for attendees to have some ‘me’ time with massages, facials, mindfulness sessions as well as the craft table. I looked for all sorts of inspiration and didn’t really find any. I then stumbled on some photos of retro signage and decided to go with the theme. I created six different laser-cut wood signs, each with a typical self-affirming phrase often linked to mindfulness sessions. For each, I spent a long time finding a relevant Bible verse or passage to move it from self-centred to God-centred.

Be stil event affirmation signs

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Bible Journaling: Easter 2023

I was asked to prep some templates and samples on an Easter theme during my regular Bible Journaling session last month. I did so yesterday and today, and we will be using mixed media techniques on Monday to create one or more of these illustrations in your journaling Bible. I’ve tried to choose verses that might not be immediately the first you’d go to, and that show the sadness and joy of the event. I hope my colour palettes reflect those emotions too. As always, the templates are freely available to download via the shop link in the menu bar above. Here are my new journaled illustrations:

 

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Bible Journaling: Salvation

I’ve spent quite a lot of time prepping this week for my Bible Journaling Session at The Studio on 13th February. I start by choosing the theme, researching the verses, checking the page in the Bible that is free of illustrations, and finally begin designing the five templates. After that, I trace into the Bible and colour each with different media. Then it’s time to photograph each sample, edit the pics, create a suitable size for Instagram, write a blog post, add the file to my shop and then publicise on Instagram and Pinterest. I forget how long it takes! I think this release also marks at least my 100th Bible journaling illustration. Anyhoo, here are the five samples we’ll be emulating in Monday’s session, all on the theme of salvation:

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