SWEET!

Today's Bible journaling is from Ezekiel, and you can read more about that here.  As usual, on this blog, I'm focused on the techniques used to create the page.

I was really caught by the imagery of eating a scroll filled with "lamentations, mournings, and woe" that tasted like honey - so decided to create a scroll that morphed into a honeycomb.  This was the result (though I wish I had thought to put the scroll over the actual verses to highlight them - rather than just highlighting them in the same color as I did here).

Scroll & Honey: After preparing the page with clear gesso (Art Basics), I started by drawing the scroll on some tracing paper (really incredibly easy to do - look for u-tube tutorials for some easy how-to's - just a couple of curved lines with curls, some straight lines & your done).  Next I drew the honeycomb and dripping honey in the lower right corner.  When this was the way I wanted it, I scribbled on the back of the lines with a soft pencil, then placed it where I wanted it on the page & drew over the lines to transfer the image to my page.  I used a couple of colors of shimmery acrylic paint (Delta) to color my scroll (watering down as needed with my brush to get the effect I wanted).  When it was dry, I outlined it with a black fine-line Sharpie and wrote the words, "lamentations, mourning, woe" on the scroll, and "honey" on the puddle of honey. 

Highlight Text: After finishing the scroll, I decided to highlight the text that the picture referred to - using the same combination of colors I used for the scroll (which was when I realized it would have been nice to have used the scroll here instead! - a bit late for that idea, though. :) )

Background Color:  I decided this bluish Glimmer Mist (sea glass) would be great for the background, but before spraying it, I first cut masks for my artwork and covered it so the spray wouldn't affect it.

Title/Text: Using a fine-point Sharpie, I added the words - hand-drawn.

Bee: As I looked at the page, there was an empty space between the words and the artwork, and the page didn't feel complete.  I realized that talking about sweet coming from painful circumstances, could relate to the bee and it's stinger, and decided I wanted to add a bee.  I had this lovely stamp from HOTP (one of their "Small Stamps"), but knew stamping over what I already had wouldn't work well.  So I decided to stamp in on a piece of my tracing paper!!!  After stamping it and coloring it with my Scroll & Brush markers (and letting it dry), I fussy cut it and glued it to the page with clear gesso! :)  As you can see, it worked well, and had the added benefit that I could go over little pieces with the gesso - kind of like decoupage - to ensure the tracing paper wouldn't come loose.