Bible Journaling - Genesis 24

When God has His eye on a person, and that person is a pivotal figure in a long succession of people who are at the heart of His salvation plan for the world, He will ensure that everything in that person's life turns out as He wishes. Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, was such a person. He was the second of what came to be called the three patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As he would be the grandfather of the 12 boys who would be the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel, it was important that His wife also met with God's approval. As we have seen in the story of Sarah, God had not only selected the men in the lineage, but also the women who would be the matriarchs of the Israelite nation. In Genesis 24 we see that Abraham sends one of his servants back to the land he left all those years ago, to go and find a wife for his son Isaac to marry. I take a look at this chapter in today's Bible Journaling blog.

This chapter is a long one that spans almost three whole pages. We therefore need to turn the pages and continue the journaling on the following page.

Because of the inclusion of a vellum page, following the last page in the chapter, this blog also stretches over more than one double page layout. In the first part of the blog, we deal with pages 26 and 27 in the Inspire Praise Bible, which look like this.

I treat the pages to a coat of Zellen Clear Gesso.

In this second part of the blog blog on Genesis 24 in the Inspire Praise Bible, we encounter the first of a number of vellum paper inserts in the Bible. We need to decide what to do with this page that is already very pretty and colourful.

I do not wish to treat the vellum with gesso, and therefore I make sure to cover it before I coat the opposite page, to prevent it from accidental spills and drops.

I coat only page 28 with Zellen Clear Gesso.

Once the gesso is dry, the pages that await me look like this.

When the servant reaches Aram, he stops by a well and prays to the God of Abraham for a specific outcome when he poses a question to a young woman. This would serve as a sign that he has met the girl of God's choosing. The sign has to do with the provision of water for the servant and the camels with him. This water had to be drawn from a well. We know that these wells did not look the way our modern impressions of western wells look, but I still choose to draw one of these more 'familiar' well, as this correlates with my idea of what a well looks like. I use a ProMarker to draw the well directly in the Bible. This turned out to be a mistake, as I made a couple of mistakes in the drawing. Fortunately the mistakes are easy enough to fix.

When I draw the camel on the opposite page, I am more cautious and start in pencil.

Satisfied with the camel, I redraw the picture with a ProMarker. I also develop the shadows on the well, effectively masking my mistakes in the process.

I use Derwent Inktense pencils to colour the camel. I dissolve the pencil with water from my Aqua Brush.

I colour the well with the Inktense pencils and return to the ProMarker to add more details. I once again paint the pencil in water.

I anchor the pictures by adding 'ground' at the bottom of the pages.

The illustration seem too dull and I decide to add blue to the sky to liven it up.

The story continues on the next page when Rebekah returns to Canaan with the servant.

We learn that Rebekah covers her face with a veil when she first lay eyes on Isaac as he walks in the field. I draw the eyes of a veiled woman in pencil on this page.

I find the last verse of this chapter very interesting from a purely female, or perhaps human, point of view: "And Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah's tent, and she became his wife. He loved her deeply and she was a special comfort to him after the death of his mother." There is a very endearing sentiment in the relationship of these two strangers who fell in love with each other and seemed to fill the emptiness left in each others' lives, for we do not read that Rebekah missed her family. They seemed to be content with each other's company. I might be reading into the text perhaps, but this is the impression I get from these lines. I colour the face with Derwent Inktense pencils and paint it with water afterwards.

The vellum page has the music score for Psalm 150:1. I finally decide that the page looks very pretty as is, and opt to leave the pages as is.

Turning back the page, my layout looks like this.

You can watch a short compilation video of the steps above on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/F-fj5VnZ5Ow

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.

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