For the wings of a dove! by Claire Graham

Life's quite stressful at the moment, juggling my children having different Easter holidays, stress at work, new responsibilities at Church, a poorly child, not enough sleep and a whole lot of negative self talk has honestly left me feeling like I want to run away... and don't even get me started on politics and the scary state of the world.  My best friend and I often joke about wanting to run away and join the circus, but frankly it's quite an appealing option at the moment!

I came across this verse earlier, whilst wallowing in my self pity. "Oh that I had the wings of a dove! That I would fly away and be at rest" (Psalm 55:6) and it was perfect! I loved the idea that I'm not the only one who's ever wanted to run away from it all. King David, super important, amazingly spiritual King David wanted to run away from it all too!!

So... first I used my trusty liquitex matt gel medium and a foam brush to prep the page (the yellow and red are bleed through from the next page.) And blasted it with my heat gun - it only takes a few minutes and for me is well worth it! 

Then I watered down some acrylic paint with liquitex matte medium, it makes it more translucent, but as I added more and more layers with a makeup sponge the text became harder to read anyway. I don't mind too much if I can't read the text, I have lots of other Bibles and phone apps that I can read an obscured passage in! I added some patterns through a stencil as well. 

Then I drew a little bird - i used my pigma graphic pen as it draws well on top of acrylic- and painted that in contrasting colours... the dots were added using the wrong end of a paintbrush! 

and lastly I added the text of the passage...

I found it amazingly comforting to dwell on the fact that I'm not alone with how I'm feeling, that it's OK to want to run away but also that like God walked with King David in his stressful times with him he's walking with me (and you) too.

Mistakes and Treasures! by Claire Graham

I remember a dear friend of mine saying to me that she could never get a Journaling Bible because she'd be so scared of getting a page wrong and then she'd want to rip it out... you can't do that in a Bible  (but you can in a sketch book!). 

That comment stuck with me, I know there's pages in my Bible that I like a lot less than some of the others and would possibly have ripped out if I could! This page was one of them... it was done in a rush, as part of a challenge I was following and as soon as I'd finished it I knew I didn't like it!! 

So a few days ago I gave it a makeover! 

I started by covering the margin in  white acrylic... it took several layers as the paint picked up the colour from the felt pen I'd used originally and went a beautiful shade of pink!! 

Then I drew some pots... I wanted to change the focus verse to "we have this treasure in jars of clay" and reference it to the Japanese tradition of kintsugi where broken pots are repaired with gold... adding to their strength and beauty. 

I painted those with acrylic too and outlined with black pen, I used gel pens to add the sparkle.
I also added a tip in flap explaining kintsugi...

... so sometimes mistakes can be covered over and a fear of making mistakes is no reason not to try!

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 ;-)