Art Journaling Session: Strips & Stripes

I’ve loosely used the theme of ‘strips & stripes’ for this month’s art journaling session at The Studio. I’ve plenty of stripes included, but the strip of ribbon and a strip of masking tape was as far as that side of things went once I had finished creating my layout. There was a great deal of prep for this layout… Each time I thought about what I was going to do, another idea came up and another bit of work to carry it off was needed. Happily, I have the kit to do the creating! Read on for a step-by-step making guide and some free downloads if you want to do exactly the same as I did.

art journaling strips and stripes layout with dressform
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Bible Journaling: Joy & Praise (BJ-42)

It’s a new year (I’m sure you’ve noticed) and what better way to start than some joy and praise in the form of this month’s Bible journaling theme. Five new illustrations for verses from Old and New Testaments, full of excitement, colour and metaphor. Keep scrolling to the link to download the templates if you would like to add any to your own Bible, and for making notes.

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Bible Journaling: Hope & Promise (BJ-41)

This month’s ‘hope and promise’ Bible journaling theme felt particularly apt for Advent. The verses follow a thread of expectation and fulfilment, and I’ve carried that through the illustrations with a shared palette and gentle contrasts of light and dark. I’ve tried to avoid the usual seasonal motifs, though a few still crept in…

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Bible Journaling: Strength & Courage (BJ-40)

This month, we’re looking at verses related to strength and courage. I was lucky enough to have created the initial ideas on the seventeenth deck of a cruise ship in force 10 gales and 6 metre swell. It wasn’t pleasant, and gave an insight into having strength and courage! Of course, that pales into insignificance compared to the sort of strength and courage we are provided with by our trust in God. Here are five new illustrations for your Bible journaling. Don’t forget there is a free downloadable PDF link at the bottom of the post for you to print and include in your Bible.

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Art Journaling Session: Crackling Campfire

If you’re UK-based, you’ll be well aware that it’s Bonfire Night on 5th November. For those in other places, you may not know that this is our way of commemorating Guy Fawkes plotting to blow up the Houses of Parliament back in 1605 during the State Opening, intending to kill King James I. Rooted in religious discontent which carried on for centuries, it’s now an excuse to let off ridiculously loud fireworks and compete for the biggest conflagration in the area.

So, it is with this inspiration that I have chosen the theme of ‘crackling campfire’. Blessedly silent, this layout incorporates crackle paint to add the appropriate texture to logs and flames, and aptly named distress oxide inks. A bit of sparkle brings the text to the fore and is a nod to firework displays up and down the country.

Crackling campfire art journaling layout with crackle paint texture and distress oxide inks
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Bible Journaling: Peace & Refuge (BJ-39)

I’ve selected five verses on the theme of ‘peace and refuge’ from the huge number of possible choices from scripture. I tried out a few new tricks I have learnt on Adobe Illustrator whilst creating these, such as warping the shield with the dove on it to gain perspective and the ‘lean’. On the Psalm 91 verse, I also read ahead and incorporated elements from later in the verse in the illustration (the rampart and shield combo). As ever, the templates are available as a free download – scroll to the end of the post. And while you are there, check out what’s happening next month!

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Bible Journaling: Redemption & Salvation (BJ-37)

For this release of Bible journaling illustrations, I have used a theme of redemption and salvation to select my verses. Five new templates from both the Old and New Testaments assure us of God’s love through the ages, now, and into the future. And, for the first time, I have illustrated perhaps the most central and one of the most well-known verses: John 3:16.

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Bible Journaling: Hope – illustrations using mixed media (BJ-35)

This month’s theme for five new illustrations to Bible journal is ‘hope’. I decided to start work in my new NIV Art Journalling Bible and there’s a little mini-review about it below. In part due to the planned review, I used five different media for my colouring-in just to see how the paper behaved. Conceptually, the illustrations were quite tricky as I didn’t want to repeat the same basic interpretation across all five verses. AI came to the rescue here, helping me develop some ideas for different emphases.

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Bible Journaling: Divine Protection (BJ-34)

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.

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

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.

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