Discovering the Hope of the Lord’s Good Care…
Chapter 4 of Discovering Hope in the Psalms “A Creative Bible Experience” is all about Psalm 23 and the hope we have from knowing the Lord as our Shepherd. This Psalm is considered a song of confidence because it clearly declares confidence in the Lord’s care for us as His beloved sheep. Even though I did not grow up in the church, I can totally understand why little one’s are encouraged to memorize Psalm 23 in Sunday School or vacation Bible Camp. Hiding this Psalm in your heart… or any other verse for that matter… allows God to bring it to your mind to encourage your heart whenever you need it the most!
The visual imagery in Psalm 23 makes it ideal for both memorizing and for creating scripture art in your Bible or art journal or even on a canvas. And oh my… I just had the most wonderful vision of a Psalm 23 quilt! Can you see it? Probably… just because the imagery is so delightful. The word pictures so powerful. We are invited to walk as sheep with our Shepherd Jesus through lush green pastures filled with flowers… I imagine daisies swaying in the wind… and we are beckoned to lie down and rest along the banks of a gently flowing stream. If I close my eyes for a moment, take a deep breath and imagine myself there, a peace comes over me… the peace of knowing that I am in the Lord’s care. Okay… your turn!
If you’re tracing the bookmark into your Bible and it has the more open space like mine does… consider creative ways to draw the design out into the page. Try adding some extra flourishes. Or slide the bookmark around under your page to duplicate the flowers and the butterfly as I did in my Bible shown above. Just remember… while you’re tracing and coloring to take some deep breathes and remember that God’s watching over you to keep you safe and give you rest no matter what your circumstances! You can find more tracing instruction and inspiration here.
I hope you love the coloring pages that I created for this chapter but when it comes to coloring, I’m often asked “where do I start?” or “how do I choose a color palette?” This particular coloring page and bookmark provide a great visual to answer that question. As for me… I normally do not choose my entire color palette before beginning to color. I have found that the simplest way to begin is with what you already know. Coloring my leaves green is always the easiest place for me to begin. Maybe a variety of greens but, most often, I want them green so that’s where I start. Now in this image we have a pasture which is also green so I chose to make my pasture light green and my leaves darker green and alternate the greens as I move up the picture. Or you could be even more creative and color every “stripe” of grass a different shade of green!!
What else do we see when we look at this page? We have water! Now we’re not talking about the muddy Mississippi so I’m guessing, like me, you’re imagining blues… maybe more aqua or maybe soft baby blues but we typically “see” water as blue. So I’ll do that next. In this case, I’ve striped the water in the image for some creative fun so I alternated light and dark blue but again you could add a variety of blues and go from light to dark at the horizon line. Okay… I see a potential problem where the water meets the sky but I’ve already decided to start at the skyline with purple and blend it up into a light blue behind the lettering.
So the whole point is to start with what you already know! With this in mind… once you color in what you already know you’ll get a better view of the entire picture and then you can simply have fun choosing the rest of the colors! Your flowers could be pink, purple, yellow, or red and then that will help you decide what color is going to work best for the border and the butterflies. One step at a time. Simple choices.
Just for fun I created this short little video while I finished coloring the coordinating note card…
If you own the Bible study, Discovering Hope in the Psalms, you already have the full page coloring page and the bookmark design. If you don’t have the book and just want the coloring page and bookmark… I created a digital printable collection which includes a note card as well. I thought it might be a sweet way to share a personalized and hand-colored word of comfort and hope with someone you know. You can find it here in my Etsy shop.
I create my scripture printables with five bookmarks on a sheet with the hope that you will share them freely. Invite some friends over and have a coloring party! Or share them with your Bible Study women or children’s Sunday school class. And I love the idea of passing them out to nursing homes… a lot of women there LOVE to color.
I hope you’ll take to the time to memorize this verse while you’re coloring it so God can bring it to your mind whenever you need it the most!
Supplies…
Discovering Hope in the Psalms Bible Study or on Amazon here
ESV Single Column Journaling Bible by Crossway (the red one like mine is no longer available but they have this yummy teal edition instead!)
005 Micron pen for Tracing
PrismaColor Premier Colored Pencils and this set of 72 should be sufficient for all your coloring needs.
Karla,
Last year some ladies from our church, First Missionary Baptist Church of Auburndale, Florida, wrote cards and included a small gift to the widows of persecuted Christians. Our small group was only able to send out 150 cards. This year we are shooting for 200-300. The organizer of the project wants to send out over 3,000. Last year we included small painted mandalas. I have already created about 60 of these, but I thought that a bookmark would be something they would see over and over while they were reading their bibles. Do you have something in color that we would be able to use at a nominal cost? I have tassels to attach to them. I would appreciate if you could help us. Thank you.
Hi Kathleen… I do have digital bookmarks available in my webstore and on Etsy. I presently do not have a limit on how many you can make for ministry use so they might be what you’re hoping for so please do take a look. Blessings… Karla