Bible Journaling - Psalm 145 Inspired Praise

Psalm 22: 3 tells us that God is enthroned in our praises. Revelations has repeated references to the praises brought to God by the twenty-four elders and the other living creatures, where God sits on His throne. In Luke 19:40, Jesus tells the Pharisees that if the people did not sing God's praises, that the stones would cry out to do so. The two pages we are dealing with today in our Inspire Praise Bible, is dedicated to praising God. I wanted to make these pages loud, using the brightest colours possible, so as to make it seem as if the visual pages were also lifting their 'voices' to shout out God's praises. In this blog I share tips for how to achieve this. But first I wish to share a poem with you, that was written by me, to bring praise and honour and glory to God. The poem is titled 'God's Holy Name.'

Father, I would like to know -

where did all the good men go,

the ones who held You in revere,

the ones who spoke Your name with fear?

I hear men speaking all around,

but how I hate that dreadful sound,

for they use Your Godly name in vain,

and yet they seem to feel no shame.

Jesus is another name they use

in their rhetorical abuse,

and yet they seem oblivious

of how powerful that name is.

Sickness can not hold its ground

before the power of that sound,

demons too, pick up and flee

before the name that sets man free.

Not even death can hold its own

but is recorded to have flown

when Jesus’ name was spoken there

where all seemed lost and in despair.

My God! My God! how can it be

that man has no respect for Thee?

Our egos are disproportionate

to the small space in which we sit.

Allow me then to lift You high,

to sing Your praises to the sky,

and when no worshippers are found,

let Your name from me resound!

An original poem by Miekie (Marietjie Uys).

The Inspire Praise Bible has Psalm 145 in its opening pages, which is a Psalm that inspires praise by bringing praise to God. I lifted out two verses in the Psalm that spoke to me personally. I underlined these two verses with my metallic pens. I invite you to do the same. Which verses stand out more to you than the others? Can you identify why this is the case?

It was only after I had already underlined the two verses that I decided that I wanted to use mediums that would bleed on the double page spread. I therefore decided to interrupt the process in order to gesso the two pages first. Make sure to use a clear gesso, or you will be covering all the writing and images on your pages. I then had to wait patiently for the gesso to dry.

I now encountered a new problem. It would seem that now that my latest pages have been treated with gesso, the previous two pages, that had also been treated with gesso, suddenly bled through the page. This caused somewhat of a conundrum for me! I would simply have to find a way to mask the bleeding when I got to it.

Once the gesso was touch dry, I closed the Bible, with the protective shield in between the two gessoed pages, and let lie upside down to straighten out the wrinkles and buckling in the pages.

This is what my pages looked like when I opened the Bible back up the next day.

I used my metallic pens to colour the words 'Psalm 145.'

I then used my Derwent metallic water-soluble colouring pencils to colour the journaling on the opposite page.

When I was done, I activated the pencil with water from my aqua brush.

I decided to use my Derwent Inktense pencils to colour this page, as I loved the vibrant colours for the exuberant joy of this page.

I coloured the page as with normal colouring pencils, and then I used my aqua brush to activate the ink. Once the Inktense is dry, you can not lift it again, unlike other watercolours.

Progress photo.

I returned to my metallic pens to colour the butterflies and bees on the page.

There still remained the task of covering that bleed through that I had from the previous page. I opted to spray some Giotto markers on the background of the page, using a straw.

The markers I used were the Giotto Turbo Dobble markers.

The completed page layout. There is still some obvious bleeding around the heading 'Psalm 145,' but I decided it was best to leave it be. More effort to mask it, might just ruin what was already a rather pretty layout.

You can watch a short compilation video of the steps above on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/zKLMiF7_yaM

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.
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