Acrylic Paint in your Bible! by Claire Graham

You put acrylic paint ... in your Bible!!

Yes! And I love it :-) I love the vividness of colours that acrylics bring and also the many different ways you can use them... here's just a few...

Scraping with a card - literally put a dot of acrylic paint on the edge of an old gift card or similar and scrape it across the page...

I've learnt the hard way that some colours work better than others (if you want to see the text once you're done!) and to use the tiniest amount of paint... 

Smearing with a baby wipe- again, just use a small amount on the wipe and smear away, the colours are a bit muted this way but you can definitely read the words through afterwards! 

Using the wrong end of a paintbrush ... dip it in the acrylic paint and use to make beautiful dots of colour... when dry the page is beautifully tactile too! 

Or... paint with it! Thinning the paint with water or liquitex matt medium helps to make it more translucent.

You could also splatter it off a stiff brush or old toothbrush.

Or print with it (for this page I turned a loo roll into a heart and secured it with an elastic band and then printed with it)

As I've mentioned before I'm an avid page preparer and always use liquitex matt gel medium to prepare my pages... in theory if you're using acrylics on a Bible page you don't need to as when the acrylic dries it forms a plastic-like barrier... but it depends how much of the page you're covering with the paint and what else you're using on it ... it's up to you if you risk it or not ;-)

My Bible Art Journaling Journey by Rachel Blundell

Hi lovely people!

I’m Rachel, a Christian, wife, mother, friend and owner of EllieBeth Designs UK Ltd. (www.elliebethdesignsuk.com) I began Bible journaling in March 2016, and can honestly say it has completely changed my prayer life and relationship with the Lord, as well as lead to a lot of lessons He’s wanted to teach me being learned!

A friend sent me a link to Illustrated Faith, and I was immediately drawn to all the colour and gorgeousness that I saw – all there to honour and worship God. As someone who loves colour – I find it makes me so happy! – I wanted to have a try. BUT. I was a bit nervous – because, you see, I’m not artistic. My whole life I have believed that I can’t draw, I can’t paint, I can’t do beautiful lettering and I’m no good at it.

What a wake up call.

Because God doesn’t say I can’t draw. He doesn’t say I can’t ‘do’ art, or be artistic. He says that I can do all things through Christ; He says I am fearfully and wonderfully made; He says I am given gifts with which to honour and glorify Him – and it’s He who chooses what they are, not me. No, I’m not capable of drawing in the same way as others, or painting what I perceive to be ‘art’ – but I can use the creativity He’s placed within me to worship and to praise Him. That’s my gift and it’s become an absolute joy to use it to create.

I’m a planner girl first and foremost, and I’ll let you into a secret – I REALLY like stickers. So much so I have an entire God-given and God-driven business around them! So I figured that stickers were a good starting point – I don’t have to be able to do amazingly beautiful brush lettering because I have a sticker for that (and stamps!) Finding things that I could do meant that the anxiety and fear of ‘what if it all looks awful and I hate it?’ went away. Plus – it’s not about whether I like it or not – God will like it, just as I love every picture my daughters bring home from school for me. I love those early messy, occasionally almost identifiable pictures from my littlest one because she did them for me, with love. We are God’s children, and He loves what we have to bring Him because of who He is – our Father – not because of what we bring Him. He just wants us to spend time with Him, and I tell you, for me, there is no better place to be than in the Word, surrounded by colour and sticking stickers, or slapping paint down.

Colourful page tabs! 

Test page in the back of my Bible

Cover page – I love this verse

My first ever entry – looking at gifts and being creative 

I love rainbows and colour – it’s great to incorporate it into my journaling

First two page spread – paint on one side, simple highlighting and a tip-in on the other

In April 2016, God clearly spoke and gave me a direction for my business. It was to bring Illustrated Faith products over into the UK and to share more about Bible Journaling. He used the description in Proverbs 31 of the woman who plants a vineyard out of her profits to show me that I was to invest my profits into things that would lead to people being helped towards a deeper relationship with Jesus. I went with it – His plans are always better than mine! – and I’ve been so blessed and humbled to see how it’s impacted other people’s journeys. There is no better email than the one which describes how taking that step (because in small business, it was a BIG investment!) has changed their relationship with the Lord.

I tried out using journaling cards for extra space to write – or for hidden journaling as here!

I recently filmed a full flipthrough of my Bible, which you can see here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi-4khVqHME

More rainbows and paint! 

I also order the Illustrated Faith Devotional Kits each month, which are available at retail price only, so I operate this on a non profit basis, simply covering costs. If you’re interested, drop me an email at hello@elliebethdesignsuk.com with details of the kit(s) you’re after.

As a thank you to the Bible journaling community, I’ve also got some Get It Together Zipper Pouches which are free in the month of November with all orders containing over £40 of Illustrated Faith items (excludes anything ordered especially from Dayspring )

Bible journaling has truly changed my life – and I hope that by sharing some of my journey, it may help you to identify the lies that you can’t be creative, and have a go anyway, or, give you some new ideas to try out!

God bless,

Rachel xxx

Watercolour over gesso – and a reminder to pause, breathe and rest in Him

I’ve been experimenting with full page tip-ins – great for creating lots of space to be creative in.

Gelatos Bible Art Journaling - by Claire Graham

In this week's post Claire Graham shows us some of the ways you can use Gelatos in your Bible Art Journaling. Thank you Claire!

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Gelatos are probably the material I use most often in my Bible Art Journaling. I love the variety of vibrant colours and the fact that you can still read the words of your Bible passage even if you cover it. They are great for making a colourful background quickly or for painting details. This page was nearly entirely created with gelatos!!

First I prepped my page with Liquitex Matt Gel Medium and a sponge applicator.. I ALWAYS prep my pages, although you don't need to with gelatos, I'm always worried that my pens will bleed or shadow through and I don't like that! I use a heat tool to make sure the prep is completely dry. Then I sketch out my design with a pencil.

Once happy I drew over my design with a black pen. 

Then I coloured in my flamingos. I used a wet paintbrush to pick up colour straight from the gelato and painted onto the page.

For the background I added colour straight to the page by scribbling with the gelato...and then used a wet paint brush to blend the colour and cover a larger area. I used a mixture of my Faber-Castell gelatos and my smiggle water colour crayons which have a beautiful metallic shimmer.

To finish off I added some white gel pen, redrew some of the outlines and added some details.

I also added a strip of washi tape at the bottom and a tab made from washi at the side - my children think I'm addicted to washi tape - they may have a point!

Gelatos can also be blended with a baby wipe or makeup sponge...made into a paint by scribbling on an acrylic block and then using a wet paintbrush... you can stamp with them and lots... lots more.