Painting Lightning Bible Art Journaling – John 9

Have you ever been in the middle of a lightning storm? I have been traveling on a bus across Kansas overnight when suddenly the lightning started popping up all around the bus. The sky went from black to blue to purple in a stunning display of electrical power.

It is hard to capture the power and majesty of lightning, but there is undeniable power there. It reminds me that the power of God can be evident during the storms of our lives. That is what my devotional this week is about.

If you haven’t read the devotional post for John 9, CLICK HERE.

My Vision Crashes into My Capabilities

As I read John 9, I got this picture in my head of a lightning strike in a light bulb as a symbol to remind me that the power of the Light of the World comes when I least expect it – right in the middle of the storms of my life.

However, as I searched to see how other artists represent lightning, I saw repeated examples that seemed to be proving to me that lightning must be really hard to paint. They were summarily uninspiring. Bleh…

How was I, an untrained artist, going to create lightning in my bible if all these other people had trouble with it?

Go For It

I decided there wasn’t anything I could do except go for it. Not exactly sure how I would pull this off, I knew that I certainly couldn’t be successful if I never tried. I created the outline of a light bulb.

You can download the printables for the book of John (including the lightbulb outline) here:

STEPS TO CREATING WATERCOLOR LIGHTNING IN A LIGHT BULB:

1. Draw a large light bulb (or trace the printable light bulb) onto your page.
2. Decide where the center of your lightning strike. You can leave it blank or paint with white watercolor.
3. Paint light blue watercolor, creating a wiggly line of white space that goes down from the center and branches of white space stringing out in several different directions (3-6 lines).
4. Add layers of darker blue, darker purple, and black, with the darkest shading around the edge of the light bulb.
5. At the bottom edge of the light bulb, add a little bit of greenish brown to suggest the ground.
6. Use gray watercolors to paint the threads at the bottom of the light bulb.
7. Fill in the tiny semicircle at the bottom with gold watercolor.
8. Use a little white acrylic paint to reinforce the white space lightning.
9. Use a white gel pen to add the tiniest trails of lightning on the outer edges.
10. Outline light bulb lines in black micron pen.

Here is the Full Bible Art Journaling Process Video:

Materials I used:

Pencils, black micron pen, Windsor and Newton Cotman Watercolor Field Set, Daler-Rowney Simply Acrylic White Acrylic Paint, and a Sakura White Gelly Roll Pen.

For the printables for the entire book of John, click on the image below:

I would love to see what you come up with for John 9. Comment here or on the Facebook page so we can see your bible art journaling entry for John 9.

Now, it is your turn to go for it! 1 – 2 – 3 – – – GO!

Blessings,

To see the devotional and bible art journaling  posts for John 1-8, CLICK HERE.