Bible Art Journaling Challenge Week 8 – Do Not Fear
Hello Everyone!
Welcome to another week of the Bible Art Journaling Challenge!
I consider myself so blessed to be able to have so many of you joining me on this wonderful journey of going deeper with God through creativity.
This week I really wanted to break my Bible in a bit. Do something creatively with it which would finally make it feel like I wasn’t making another person’s book beautiful. Like, it was too precious to mess up and be real with. I wanted to OWN that book for myself and feel it has finally made home with me. As requested, I used Gelatos. I decided to hold nothing back and go a bit wild in the art studio and I think you’ll either love it or freak out! ha ha Watch my video below and then head over to our Facebook Group and/or Google+ Community, to chat about this weeks Bible Art Journaling Challenge and get started on your own page!
This week’s scripture is Isaiah 41:10 which says (in my NASB Note-Taker’s Bible),
“Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.“
I love that God’s big, great, aged and experienced hands, hold us tight and protect us so we don’t have to do the job ourselves. We can fall back into His arms and He will catch us every time! I used a stencil with numbers as it can be easy in life to get caught up by the number of things we could look around and be anxious about. But, we need to focus on God’s presence in the midst of it. I wrote some affirmations from God with a water-based, white sharpie paint pen which seemed the best option for over Gelatos. I chose not to sign or date this with my Micron pens as I didn’t want to risk the Gelatos clogging them.
I enjoyed this over the top fun, creative process this week using my Gelatos, Versamark Ink Pad, a stencil and Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel. I hope you enjoy my video!
I thought you might appreciate a glimpse of how the page looks with light reflecting off it and up close, which you can see below. It has turned out to be a fun page which I really enjoyed making.
As I mentioned in the video today, some of you know I have been testing out a new page preparation for our Bible art journals and I’ve got to tell you, I feel like this whole experience just got more dreamy! I cannot say enough good about the Art Basics Clear Gesso by Prima Marketing which I used to prepare my Bible page today. The other gesso’s which you see pictured below are wonderful but leave a rough texture which is not helpful to delicate Bible art journaling. Once finished applying this clear gesso, I can art journal on a super smooth surface, with a totally matte finish. I don’t need to sand down the surface or anything. Just get going with my creative flow. It is SO smooth and matte, you have to feel around once it dries to see if it is actually there! The very BEST part is of course, that it is entirely transparent! The swatches in my photo below don’t show properly how smooth the Art Basics clear gesso actually is.
I would recommend this as an essential Bible art journaling supply. Thank you to the lovely lady who mentioned to me in my YouTube comments that she’d heard of this stuff and wondered if it was what I was looking for. For now, I only recommend the Art Basics Clear Gesso brand for a transparent Bible art journal, gesso page preparation. The experience of working with it was so superior to the other clear gesso brands, for on my Bible pages, that I won’t be bothering with other brands moving forward. You’ll see me using this clear gesso again next week in a very special challenge. Exciting stuff coming up!
You can find answers to most any question you may have about the challenge, over on my Bible Art Journaling Challenge page.
Art Supplies
As promised, here are the supplies I featured in this weeks video which you can click on to view or purchase. I hope it helps you find anything you may want to try out.
I receive a small percentage of each purchase when anyone clicks on my art supply links, to go get supplies I use like you see below, or on my YouTube videos. This has no effect on you and makes a real difference for me! I am excited for you to get great deals on supplies anywhere, so you can join in on your budget. When you find deals which I’ve searched for and recommended below, I get supported. Thank you, I so appreciate your support which helps me provide these free tutorials for you!
Click images to view art supply details or to purchase.
Bibles
There are several wide-margin Bibles I’ve seen recommended for art journaling, including large print versions. I’ve created a linked collection here to make your choice easier when looking for a Bible to art journal in. If you click on any of the Bibles, you will often be able to look inside to see the pages for yourself before purchasing!
- Lots of people love the ESV Journaling Bible with faint lines and a very wide margin.
- I love my imitation leather, NASB Note-Taker’s Bible (top left Bible below), which is free of lines in the smaller but still, wide-margin.
- All give extra room for creativity.
- You can also join in with a Bible you already have, or even an art journal like the art journals I recommend.
Click images to view art supply details or to purchase.
If you have not done so yet, be sure to join my newsletter on the right-hand side of this page, so you can be notified when I release new Challenges and other exciting creative things.
Don’t forget to share this with any friends you think might want to know about it. I will see you right here next week, for another Bible Art Journaling Challenge!
You are loved. x
Eurika
Feb 24, 2015 @ 2:02 pm
Thank you for all your hard work and the videos that you share with us Rebekah. I love your voice and your beautiful accent, it is so calming. I lived in Oxford, UK for 5 years, your voice brings back many lovely memories.
Dianne
Feb 24, 2015 @ 4:48 pm
So glad that the Art Basics clear gesso by Prima Marketing worked for you. I guess their marketing literature was correct. I’ve seen a lot of our community deal with the bleed through of markers and paints. This should fix all that. Congrats!
elli
Feb 24, 2015 @ 5:51 pm
I would be really helpful when you are finished to show the backside of the page. I am always interested to see how much bleed through there is with the products used. Thanks so much elli
Sarah Miller
Feb 24, 2015 @ 8:01 pm
I am so glad to find you. What a fun way to document our faith with art!
Wretha
Mar 9, 2015 @ 8:02 am
Ohhhh thank you for sharing that gesso with us, I will be getting some and trying it out, book journaling, here I come again! “:)
Wretha
Laurel Summers
Mar 28, 2015 @ 8:41 pm
I’ve watched the video several times and have a question about the gesso, which I have tried out on a back page in my journaling Bible. I haven’t tried markers or painting on it yet because I’m a bit disconcerted by the page wrinkling the gesso creates. I don’t see much of that on the video. I do see that the page shrinks just a bit and mine did so, too, but where your page looks smooth mine is anything but smooth. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I’m LOVING these challenges – thanks SO much!
Rebekah R Jones
Mar 31, 2015 @ 3:02 pm
Hi Laurel! I had another lady mention this to me, this week as well. We narrowed down the differences and it turns out she lets hers air dry and I use my heat gun, blowing heat to sort of “push” against the wrinkles while it is drying. I do have that shrinking like you but you are right, my pages seem to be smoother. Maybe you’re also not using a heat gun? If not, I’ve got the one I use in the art supplies above. We will never get our pages totally smooth since we’ve introduced liquid to the page, but my heating the page while it dries, seems to really help force it to be a bit smoother. Hope that helps! If not, lets work out what the differences may be for us and narrow it down to get yours looking like you want. 🙂
Keri
Aug 26, 2015 @ 11:08 pm
Hi Rebekah, I have recently discovered bible journaling and have fallen in love with it. I have ordered most of the items from your tutorial but I cannot find the the Gesso in clear that you have suggested. Amazon is out of stock and so is the Prima Marketing Arts Basic company. I have also checked with other stores but have not been successful. Do you have any suggestions of where I might be able to fine this.
Tammie McCoy
Feb 23, 2019 @ 4:45 pm
I enjoyed this simple but beautiful lesson. Thank you for sharing. I will dobsomething similar although more me of course. Thanks again for updated lessons. Easy to get into this lesson for me too.
Debbie Reed
May 31, 2019 @ 2:37 pm
This is beautiful. Looks awesome.