Bible Journaling - Colouring the third and fourth pages of the Bible while contemplating Attitude

God makes me happy. I find such immense pleasure in my relationship with Him. Do you know what I mean? I am sure you must, because the idea is not one that originated with me. There are numerous passages in the Bible that speaks of the joy that is to be found in God. The best known is probably Philippians 4:4 which says, "Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again - rejoice!" Years ago, I wrote a very short four line poem in which I expressed the attitude with which I intend to approach life. This has since become somewhat of a life motto for me. In today's blog, I share this poem with you, while I show you how to prepare your pages to receive mediums that would otherwise bleed through to the reverse side of the page, if left untreated.

Ecstasy

I shall embark once more on a journey of ecstasy.
I shall travel light, for I shall indeed need naught but who I am.
I shall hold closely, I shall give freely, and I shall laugh every step of the way,
for I am a woman, wanting and willing, to give my love as I may.

An original poem by Marietjie Uys (Miekie)

The next pages in my Inspire Praise Bible, again has a double spread layout of pages that need to be coloured. This time they have left the journaling block open for me to fill. I decided that I would like to fill it with the poem that I had shared above, titled Ecstasy. In the meantime, I had the issue of bleeding to contend with on this layout as well, as my previous journaling attempts had left its mark on these pages when the markers I had used, bled through to this layout.

I decided that I would use mainly inks on these two pages. It would therefore be essential that I prepared the surfaces well before I started. Not having been able to obtain clear gesso yet, I opted to use the Dala Acrylic Matt Glaze Medium in my possession, instead. I slipped the plastic cover from my Mont Marte Watercolour pad behind the page I was working on and painted the whole page with the Glaze Medium.

Then I pulled the protecting plastic out and slipped it behind the opposite page, before painting this page with the Glaze Medium as well.

I added a weight to the cover of my Bible that kept on wanting to close and left the Bible open like that for the medium to dry.

When it was completely dry, I slipped the plastic shield in between the two painted pages and turned the Bible upside down to press the paper flat, as it had become slightly wrinkly from the wet gel medium. When I opened it up the next day, the pages were perfectly smooth again.

I started the colouring of these pages with my brand new Mont Marte Adult Colouring Duo Markers. These have a fineliner tip on one end and a brush tip on the other end, making them perfect to fill larger or smaller areas quickly and accurately.

I also used the Giotto Turbo Dobble markers on the page. Once again the markers each have to points; a fine point on one end and a thicker tapered bullet point on the other end.

I decided to add a little bit of bling to the page and introduced the Giotto Turbo Glitter markers, as well as some metalic pens. It was the Glitter markers that had bled through from the previous pages, but this time I was confident that I had taken the proper precautions.

I also used my trusted Staedtler Triplus fineliners on the page.

When I wanted to use the colour from the fineliners in the larger areas, I found it very tedious to colour these with that small tip. I therefore only scribbled a couple of lines in the leaves I wanted green.

Then I wet the ink with my wet Aqua Brush and painted the ink into the areas. The Aqua Brush is a watercolour brush that has a reservoir in the handle which can be filled with water. When you paint with it, the water runs down the brush at a steady and controlled rate, allowing you to do watercolour painting without needing to dip the brush in water. As the palm of my hand was smudging my inks as I was working, I used the plastic shield I had cut from my Mont Marte Watercolour Pad as a shield to rest my hand on as I worked. This solved the issue of smudging my own work very effectively.

I then wet some blue watercolours to fill in the background on the page.

I carefully painted the background with watercolours paint using my aqua brush. Be careful not to lift any of those watersoluble inks, though!

I then fetched my mouth atomizer and a large metal paper clip from my art and craft collection. I wanted to spray some ink on my page to mask the blotches left from the bleeding. The mouth atomizer allows me to see more clearly where my ink will end up. Otherwise, you can simply use a straw as well. Place the tip of a marker right under the opening of the straw and blow hard. A fine mist of ink will end up on your paper. With the atomizer, I clamped the marker so to the bottom leg of the atomizer so that the tip of the marker was directly under the opening of the top leg. Then I blew hard and had the same results as with the straw, but more hands-free and with better control. I tested this on a loose piece of paper first, before using it in my Bible.

I then went ahead and prayed the glitter ink on my page. The effect was lovely and it masked those blotches beautifully.

The question was if all of this ink and water and spraying had bled through to the other pages? As you can see, no damage was done to the previous pages. I loved the idea that suddenly occurred to me as I did this check. As Christians, we can never allow ourselves to live lives that do not consider others as well. Whenever we do, the effects may be damaging to those others, not unlike the blotches left by my first inconsiderate start to the project. However, it is also true that the pages that had their foundation well prepared and in place, did not damage any other pages, nor did it suffer too greatly from the damage done by the inconsiderate ones. With a little preparation, it was possible to take the necessary steps to reduce the damage done by others and even turn it into a thing of beauty. There is a lesson to be learned here for all of us.

The pages on the other side of the project did not show any signs of bleeding either. Fabulous!

In a previous blog, I had commented on how it was necessary for us as believers, to always consider others in our Spiritual walk on this earth. I now again found myself having to stop what I was doing in consideration of the next page. This is very much the way we are supposed to live as Christians as well. Sometimes we need to stop what we are doing, not for our own sake, but for the sake of our fellow believers, or for the sake of the damage our actions may do to the perceptions others have of God. I wanted to decoupage a poem onto the page, but that would leave a line when I coloured the next page. This meant that I would have to colour that page, before I could continue on this one. The blog cannot show you the timing of these projects, but that is exactly what I did, before coming back to finish this page.

I found this printed version of the poem that I wanted to decoupage onto the page.

I had to crop it extensively to fit in the given block.

I would use Dala Acrylic Gel Medium to decoupage the poem onto the page.

I painted the Acrylic Gel Medium onto the backs of the individual lines.

I then stuck them down individually in their places.

I waited for the gel medium to dry before continuing.

I sealed the poem with the same medium that I prepared the page with, as I wanted the mediums that I would use on top of the poem, to react similarly as for the rest of the poem. The medium is Dala Acrylic Matt Gloss Medium.

After the sealant had dried, I coloured the poem block with watercolours.

The I sprayed some glitter ink on the poem to make it part of the rest of the page.

The finished product.

You can watch a compilation video of these steps on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/U8g_SuFgckE

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2005,2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois, 60188. All rights reserved.

Inspire PRAISE South Africa edition copyright 2017 by Christian Art Publishers, PO Box 1599, Vereeniging, 1930, RSA. All rights reserved.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
You can follow Miekie's daily Bible Study blog, Bybel Legkaart, here in English & Afrikaans.
You may prefer to follow the traveling blog, A Pretty Tourist.
For more crafty ideas and great product reviews, visit A Pretty Talent on Facebook.
If you are in a literary mood, follow Miekie's musings, stories and poetry on A Pretty Author - Miekie.
Remember to keep nurturing your TALENT for making life PRETTY.
You can subscribe to any of these blogs and receive regular updates by email. Simply register your email address at the top of the applicable blog.