Bible Journaling: Love & Compassion (BJ-43)

This month’s theme of love and compassion draws on five verses that reflect God’s love for his world, and how we are instructed to show that same love to one another. From the Old Testament through to the New, that commitment threads its way through Scripture — a constant from the very beginning, and just as present today.

Here are five new illustrations inspired by those verses.

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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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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: Light & Guidance (BJ-38)

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:

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Bible journaling: Creation & nature (BJ-36)

Now that I have moved into my new journaling Bible, I’m able to choose new verses and revisit old ones with new illustrations. This month, I have selected five verses on a theme of creation and nature and created art journaling designs for each:

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Makes on Monday: Crocheted Coo

Facebook marketing works… I saw this pattern for highland cow amigurumi dolls promoted in my feed, and after an inquiry, I purchased it from Cottontail & Whiskers. Said inquiry was ‘Would you like me to make these?’ I aimed to crochet all three over three months, in time for a certain person’s birthday at the beginning of April. After several false starts (it was the first time I had done anything similar), I managed to get the largest (Tunnock) done in time.

Finished large crocheted Highland cow made using Cottontail & Whiskers pattern
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Makes on Monday: 3D Bible Journaling (commission)

At the end of April I accepted a last minute commission for a retirement gift. The brief was to make a piece featuring the recipient’s favourite Bible verse, Joshua 1:9. The time frame was tight, complicated by a long weekend working in London, but I got it done. I wanted to try out a technique I’d seen on various reels. I had ordered some solid wood pieces and they were perfect for this design:

3D Bible journaling featuring Jonah 1 verse 9, with carved two wood bas relief lion's head, gold leaf and coloured pencil text.
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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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Art Journaling Session: Artist’s Impression

It’s going to be a two-parter… We’re underway for this month’s art journaling session in The Studio, taking Klimt’s ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I’ as our inspiration. When I was putting the sample together, I quickly realised my ambitions for the class were not going to fit the time available so texts went out and my first two-session layout was agreed. My Klimt inspired art journaling layout looks like this:

Klimt inspired art journaling based on 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I'
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