Bible Art

If you enjoy creating art, or if you just like to look through Pinterest, you have probably seen examples of what is popularly called “Bible journaling.” It’s where people illustrate scriptures in their Bibles, using all different types of media.

While I normally want to try every new craft I see, it took a long time for me to “jump on the bandwagon” with this one. I have always highlighted or underlined scriptures, but something about drawing in your Bible just didn’t sound right to me. I loved looking at the pretty designs other people were doing, but I resisted the idea of trying it myself. Until recently…I decided to get a Bible specifically for drawing in, so it wouldn’t seem so…well…like I was drawing in my actual Bible. I went to the same bookstore where I got the book “It Will Be Okay”, and looked through numerous Bibles designed especially for “journaling”. I decided on this one, because I liked the feel of the cover and the pages. It was also not as heavy and bulky as some that I saw. Plus, as an added bonus, it was on sale!So this was my first attempt. Ever since our “skit/puppet class” did our (now) famous “Zaccheus skit” in Sunday school, this “wee little man” has held a special place in my heart. In the skit, Mark and I were a couple who were charged too much by “Zax Tax Service”. Notice “Zack” looking out of the tree…which (as I probably don’t have to tell you) spent a fair amount of time standing up in the corner of the “puppet room”…I knew the pen and colored pencils I used would probably show through to the other side of the page, but that seemed inevitable. So even though that kind of stuff bugs me, I decided to just accept the fact that I can’t draw on both sides of the same page.Another thing I noticed was that when you color the bottom of the page, the page will curl up. That kind of thing also bugs me, so I thought maybe I could stabilize the edge of the page from the other side with washi tape. To my knowledge, there is no such thing as transparent washi tape, but I would have preferred that. At least I found some with paiselys!

The washi tape does make the page lay flat. I had seen where people make tabs to mark the pages they have drawn, so I tried that but took them off, because that kind of stuff bugs me, too! (You probably never knew I was that picky, did you?)This is one of my favorite stories. I can “so” relate to the phrase “wished for the day”. It was something Mark and I experienced regularly during his illness. As I have mentioned before, when someone is ill, their symptoms are often at their worst in the middle of the night. And, so are the anxieties and apprehensions of their caregiver. Which is why I always tried to remind myself of the scripture illustrated below.Below are two more from Psalms that especially speak to my heart.

Occasionally you have extra space on the page, like this, so you get to draw a bigger picture. Conveniently, there wasn’t enough room to draw the rest of the crane, since I barely got the front of it to look halfway decent.Now this one has a story behind it. I originally was trying to draw Esther touching the king’s scepter, but when I finished, I looked at the verse again and it said that Esther touched the top of the scepter (as opposed to grabbing ahold of it.) So I made the sleeve more masculine and used the scripture where the king holds out the scepter to her. The moral of the story: Make sure you know your scripture before you draw it!