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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Altered Art: Signs & woodblocks

I’ve been in full production mode getting stock ready for a Christmas Fayre at the end of November. All being well, there will be good footfall and matching sales. If not, anticipate a lot of listings in my Facebook and Etsy stores!

This week I’ve been concentrating on signs. The wood plaques were bought in, and then undercoated with gesso and a cream chalky finish acrylic paint. I designed all the typography in Adobe Illustrator and then etched the outlines on to the signs using my brand spanking new replacement laser cutter. After that, it was a matter of using Posca pens to fill in the gaps before doing a dirty wash with diluted acrylic paint to age them. Some had crackle medium added to the corners, but it doesn’t show up overly well. Each sign is approx. 30cm x 10cm, £5 each.

I’ve also been playing with some 10x10cm paulownia wood blocks, etching into them using the laser cutter. The laser has burnt away the soft wood more easily than the grain leaving a beautiful texture in the background. A set of four is available for £6.

Used in these projects:

  • Signs and wood blocks: Creativ Company
  • Laser cutter: Glowforge
  • [amazon_textlink asin=’B00MWSQKTS’ text=’Posca pens’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’themanicstamp-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’f5c4e647-dd3f-11e8-b81b-73098a4b58d8′]
  • [amazon_textlink asin=’B00HO038BM’ text=’DecoArt Americana Chalky Finish: Lace’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’themanicstamp-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’26127792-dd40-11e8-a16a-8f3936c4d211′]