Bible Journaling - Genesis 25

Genesis 25 marks the fact that we are halfway through the first book of the Bible. In this chapter we say farewell to Abraham and Ishmael as they depart this life. As is the case in real life though, we also welcome two new babies into the world when Rebekah gives birth to Isaac and Jacob. I show you how I went about journaling these events in pictures in today's Bible Journaling blog.

As is often the case in our journaling experience through the Bible, we find that once again the chapters require of us to flip the page to where the story continues on the next page.

Genesis 25 has the reverse side of the vellum paper insert in the Inspire Praise Bible. As the words read backwards on this side, we need to decide what to do with this page. After much contemplation, I decided to ignore this fact and to simply leave the vellum page as is.

I cover the vellum page before I coat page 29 with gesso, to prevent the gesso from getting onto the vellum. Then I coat page 29 with Zellen Clear Gesso.

When I return to the page, I already have some eyes peering at me through a veiled face, from the previous chapter's journaling. Chapter 25 kicks off with a recount of Abraham's passing. I choose to replicate Sarah's gravestone to illustrate this. Before he passes away though, Abraham married yet another woman and she gave birth to no less than six sons whom she conceived with Abraham. These would become ancestors to some mighty nations and are well worth taking note of.

I colour the headstone with Derwent Inktense pencils and paint it with water afterwards to dissolve the ink.

I then draw and pant some vegetation around the headstone.

Once the illustration is dry, I write the key information on the headstone with a ProMarker. I did not like the thickness of the point here and went over the writing again with a fountain pen.

This page was now done and I could flip over to the next one.

The page that awaited me looked like this.

The story kicks off with the news of the passing of Ishmael and once again we are informed of his genealogy. We learn that twelve princes were descended from Ishmael. The passage on Ishmael concludes on an ominous note: "There they lived in open hostility toward all their relatives." I once more replicate the headstone I had drawn twice before.

Again it is painted in Derwent Inktense pencils.

Again I add vegetation around the headstone.

And yet again I write the key information on the headstone with a fountain pen.

The next passage tells us of the births of Jacob and Esau. We learn that these twins had been contentious towards each other in their mother's womb already. Even before they were born, Jacob tried to supplant Esau to gain his right as firstborn. He came out of his mother's womb holding on to Esau's heel. I draw this in pencil.

I then paint the illustration in Derwent Inktense pencil.

The last passage in the chapter deals with the fact that Esau was a hunter, while Jacob was more of a homebody. It tells us the familiar story of how Jacob gained Esau's firstborn right after the latter returned hungry and weary from the field, after a presumably unsuccessful hunt. As these were rather primitive hunters, given the timeline in human history, I decide to draw cavemen-like pictures to depict Esau as a hunter. I use a ProMarker for this purpose.

My page was now done, or so I thought, until I had done the next chapter, and turned back to find that it had bled through to this side of the page.

This is the bleeding I would discover later on, from the next page.

I decided to try and mask it by simply increasing the plant-growth surrounding the headstone.

Now the page was finally done.

Paging back to get an overview of the chapter as a whole.

You can watch a short compilation video of the steps above on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/T8PvLA3EDq0

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:
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