Hello friends! This post is the beginning of a series inspired by the Illustrated Faith blog, which used to post tutorials almost weekly, but has now become inactive. Basically, I’ll show you my process of Bible journaling with various techniques and supplies, with the hope of inspiring you to try new things and grow in your faith. This week, I was inspired to fingerpaint in the book of Job. Enjoy!
The Verse: Job Overview/Intro
I’ve been reading through the book of Job the past few weeks, and I noticed an overarching theme that I wanted to document on the first page of the Scripture journal: God is sovereign. Even in the midst of Job’s sorrow and suffering, and the attempts by his friends to comfort and guide him (all of which fall woefully short), God is there. He lowered the wall of protection around Job (Job 1), but never completely took it away. And in the end, all it took was a renewed experience of God’s presence to comfort and restore Job’s spirit, more than his body. Long story short: the book of Job is about the sovereignty of God, which extends far past our understanding.
Supplies
- ESV illuminated scripture journal – Job (find out why I love the ESV scripture journals here!
- acrylic paints from Hobby Lobby
- a singular paint brush
- Tombow fudenosuke brush pen
- Fingers!!
Process: Fingerpainting!!
I did this page on a weeknight sitting in my dorm room, so the process isn’t super detailed. Fingerpainting is perfect for this, of course! The imprecise lines also add to the abstract, emotional feel of the book of Job.
If you’d prefer a video tutorial, here’s a look at the process on instagram/tiktok just for you!
Step One: the background
Literally all you have to do to fill in the background is put some paint directly onto the page (I chose a couple shades of blue and grey) and spread it around.
Step 2: Basic circle shape
I wanted a few clusters of florals around the page, so I picked three shades of light blue/turquoise and made a basic circle shape. Use the same finger for this, and you won’t have to worry about the colors mixing where you don’t want them to 😉
Step 3: darker colors for detail
The next thing I did was pick three darker blue/teal colors and layer them on top of the lighter colors in a series of swirls (use a different finger for this part). This gives the impression of abstract roses with very little effort required. You don’t even have to wait for the paint to dry all the way!
Step 4: leaves
Next, take two different shades of green and make a triangle kind of shape with a third finger (or just clean your fingers lol). I started with a darker color, then added the lighter color on top.
Step 5: extra greenery
The last step in the fingerpainting Bible journaling process is to add some greenery in a contrasting/accent color. I used my pinky finger to do this, which led to some very… abstract shapes, but it looked alright in the end.
Final step: add a title
The last thing I did to complete this page was create a title. I used white paint and the only clean (ish) flat paintbrush I could find to create a banner, then added a smaller banner at the bottom to designate the title of the book. It is important to wait for the paint to dry this time, but once it has, you can use a brush pen (or just a basic black pen) to add the titles.
Ta-dah! All done! I really enjoyed this Bible journaling process with fingerpainting. It seems to fit the theme of the book of Job super well.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you did, please do me a solid and share with all your peeps using the graphic below. And let me know what you’ve learned from the book of Job!
Happy Wednesday!
