Creative Hearts Awake

At the weekend I went to a conference in Sale, Cheshire.  It was called Creative Hearts Awake - releasing the gift of creativity.  While I was there I met up with some other members of His Kingdom Come - Carolyn, Sarah & Karen.  Fran was there too but not when we took the photo!

I think there will probably be more than one blog post about it but they won't be in the order of the conference timetable.

On Saturday afternoon I went to a Creative Writing workshop led by Tim Watson.   He talked about poetry and we worked our way through a short booklet he had put together and then got down to writing.

I have written some poetry in the past but then stopped.  Recently I have felt that I should start again but just didn't know where to start.  Of course the answer is to just do it but that didn't happen.  I needed a kick start and Tim provided it.

After the four of us taking part in the workshop had done an exercise together we were given half an hour to take one of the other exercises and write something.  I was planning to come back early on Sunday because I wanted to be at church to hear Rob preach on Honour - the first part of 5 weeks on the Culture of Jubilee Church.

And before I hear what Rob had to say I wanted to write something about the 5 words that we are using to describe the culture of the church: Honour, Courage, Authenticity, Passion and Family.  Here is what I wrote:

Jubilee. Jubilate!

Honour.
Bring honour to your name.
Bring honour to your people.
Respect. Love.
Support. Encourage.
Hold in high esteem.
Release the gifts. The spiritual gifts.
Release the talents and the skills.

Jubilee. Jubilate!
Rejoice before our God.
Jubilee. Jubilate!
Take our joy to the people.
Take our God from the confines of the church
Reveal him in the marketplace.
Rejoice.

Courage.
Risk taking. Stepping out.
Speak.
Find my voice.
Speak out.
Go to the town.
Go to the nation.
Go to the world.
Pray.
Pray risky prayers.
Jubilee. Jubilate!
Rejoice before our God.

Jubilee. Jubilate!
Take our joy to the people.
Take our God from the confines of the church
Reveal him in the marketplace.
Rejoice.

Authenticity
Being me.
Accepting me for who I am
Made in the image of God.
Accepting you for who you are
Made in the image of God.
Each different.
Accepting one another.
Living transparent lives.
Encouraging one another
Helping one another
One anothering.
Iron sharpens iron.
No shame. Just truthful lives
Jubilee. Jubilate!
Rejoice before our God.

Jubilee. Jubilate!
Take our joy to the people.
Take our God from the confines of the church
Reveal him in the marketplace.
Rejoice.

Passion
Kingdom
Kingdom of Heaven
Kingdom values here on earth.
Wholeheartedly.
Wholeheartedness.
Pursue. Pursuit.
Run after God.

Jubilee. Jubilate!
Rejoice before our God.
Jubilee. Jubilate!
Take our joy to the people.
Take our God from the confines of the church
Reveal him in the marketplace.
Rejoice.

Family
People joined together by our love of God.
Not nuclear.
Not 2.4 children.
A body of people together.
A tribe. A village.
Single. Married. Divorced. Brothers. Sisters.
Children.
Related by blood.
Christ's blood.

Jubilee. Jubilate!
Rejoice before our God.
Jubilee. Jubilate!
Take our joy to the people.
Take our God from the confines of the church
Reveal him in the marketplace.
Rejoice!

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

 

8: Correction & Honour

Today is the last session from the Bible Study in 1 Corinthians called A Culture of Honour.    On this blog I shall be posting about my creative response to each session.   Session 8 is called Correction & Honour.

I am using the same techniques and stamps and inks on each page as described for session 1.

I added some colour through a stencil

And stamped as before.

I added some washi tape and my journaling.

And that's it apart from the title page.

I hope you have enjoyed the Honour series and seeing my pages being made.

On Monday I'll show you the whole book put together.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bernice

7: Honouring Leaders part 2

Today is the penultimate session from the Bible Study in 1 Corinthians called A Culture of Honour.    On this blog I shall be posting about my creative response to each session.   Session 7 is called Honouring Leaders.

I am using the same techniques and stamps and inks on each page as described for session 1.

Stencilled

Stamped and journaling list.

I hope seeing my pages is helpful.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

6: Honouring Leaders part 1

Today is the sixth of eight sessions from the Bible Study in 1 Corinthians called A Culture of Honour.    On this blog I shall be posting about my creative response to each session.   Session 6 is called Honouring Leaders.

I am using the same techniques and stamps and inks on each page as described for session 1.

Stencilled

Stamped

Tissue tape added and then the journaling.

Today's jounraling prompts included:

What name have you given yourself?   What name has God given you?

My given name - Bernice - comes from the Greek name Berenike (where we also get the Nike brand name from).  Berenike means Bringer of Victory.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

5: Honouring Others part 2

Today is the fifth of eight sessions from the Bible Study in 1 Corinthians called A Culture of Honour.    On this blog I shall be posting about my creative response to each session.   Session 5 is called Honouring Others.

I am using the same techniques and stamps and inks on each page as described for session 1.

I returned to the sage and blackberry colour scheme.

And added the dandelions, stamping with Distress Ink.

Instead of a list I wrote some journaling!

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

4: Honouring Others part 1

Today is the fourth of eight sessions from the Bible Study in 1 Corinthians called A Culture of Honour.    On this blog I shall be posting about my creative response to each session.   Session 4 is called Honouring Others.

I am using the same techniques and stamps and inks on each page as described for session 1.

I tried some pale blue and lime green for this double spread.

I added some tissue tape and my journaling.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

3: A Culture of Honour part 2

Today is the third of eight sessions from the Bible Study in 1 Corinthians called A Culture of Honour.    On this blog I shall be posting about my creative response to each session.   Session 3 is called A Culture of Honour.

I am using the same techniques and stamps and inks on each page as described for session 1.

Stencilled.

Stamped

And added my journaling.

I have deliberately kept my journaling simple for this study.  But the joy is that I can go back any time and add more writing if I wish.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

2: A Culture of Honour part 1

Today is the second of eight sessions from the Bible Study in 1 Corinthians called A Culture of Honour.    On this blog I shall be posting about my creative response to each session.   Session 2 is called A Culture of Honour.

I used the same techniques in my journal as last time.

Here are my two pages with the thin coat of gesso.

As before I stencilled with the blackberry acrylic paint.

And stamped with the Distress Ink.

I didn't like how the orange Archival Ink looked so I used Distress Ink this time.  I also added some washi tape.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice



 

1: Cultivating a Culture of Honour

Today is the first of eight sessions from the Bible Study in 1 Corinthians called A Culture of Honour.    On this blog I shall be posting about my creative response to each session.   Session 1 is called Cultivating a Culture of Honour.

I love the writing that Mary Brack and Hope Wallace Karney do in their journals but becasue I don't give time to practising such things I can't do that style.  However what I did do was go to dafont where I found some free handwriting fonts.  Using Publisher (you can use whatever Desktop Publishing package you have) I put the verse into the font and then arranged it in different sizes on the page.  I made sure the text box I was working would fit my journal page.   I printed out the verse and then shaded over the back heavily with a 3B pencil.

I turned the paper over and traced over the words with a pen which left a pale pencil impression and then went over that with two thicknesses of pen.

These are the pages with just the thin gesso layer on.

I chose some acrylic paints to keep to a colour scheme although in the end I didn't use all of them.

I bought myself some cosmetic sponges from the 99p shop to apply the paint and also used a damp wet wipe.  The paint wipes off the gesso if you use a wet wet wipe.

I chose 2 6x6" stencils to use although the bottom one didn't work well so I worked mostly with the top one.

I added some sage green over the pages and some blackberry through the stencil.  You can see where I tried unsuccessfully putting pale blue acrylic through the second stencil.

I chose a couple of stamps and the Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and randomly stamped onto my pages.  I didn't put the stamp onto a block.  I held it in my hand and pressed part of the stamp onto the paper.

I found a small butterfly stamp and used Archival Ink to stamp with.  However it was a bit too wet.  I listed those values that are important to me.

I hope you feel you can join in with the study.  If it's not your thing then I hope that my showing how I make my pages helps you with your art journaling.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

A Culture of Honour

Starting with an introductory post on July 31st and then running for the month of August A Culture of Honour is a creative Bible Study mostly based in 1 Corinthians.  To ensure you get all the information go to the Culture of Honour blog and scroll down to the bottom of the page and sign up for the emails.

I decided that for this study I would make an altered book in the way that Mary Brack makes them.  She has tutorials on her blog which I downloaded and used.  I love the way Mary does the writing in her books and she learned that from Hope Wallace Karney.

When I was clearing my parent's house I found this old hymn book.

I followed Mary's instructions and cut out the pages.

And then cut along the front and back covers to remove the spine.

I cut some pages from a Mixed Media Journal and collage both sides of the paper.   I used old maps, old book pages, music and scrapbooking papers.

And cut the excess off when the collaged paper had dried.

Here are all my pages.

And the other sides.

When they were dry I put them all under a heavy pile of books to flatten out over night!

Then I put a very thin layer of gesso over every page.

I made myself a template for putting the holes in the cover and the pages.

And assembled the book.

I will be showing how I do my pages on this blog for each session of the study.

I hope you will join me for A Culture of Honour.

Thanks for stopping by
Bernice