Lenten Art Journal: A Royal Pardon

Pretty much anyone who knows me knows my favorite color is purple.  I was lucky enough to be born in February, so my birthstone is purple Amythest. I've always gravitated toward this color.  I love the richness of purple. I wear a lot of purple. There's a beautiful lady at church who also loves purple and each week we greet each other and admire each other's lovely purpleness.
Today's word prompt for my Lenten journal is purple.  The bible mentions purple quite a bit, in reference to royalty and richness.  Creating purple in the ancient world was a costly process, so only those with wealth could afford to adorn themselves with this color. Did you know the dye comes from a small snail found in the Mediterranean Sea? You needed a lot of these snails to make enough dye to color cloth, thus making it rare and costly.
According to biblestudy.org, "purple" is used 48 times in the bible. Most of these usages are found in the Old Testament, alluding to royalty and wealth (Esther 8:15, Exodus 28:5, Ezekiel 27:7). Purple was used in the temple curtains and King Solomon consulted an expert dye maker when designing the temple (2 Chronicles, 2:7). Purple is the color of kings.

And the soldiers twisted together
a crown of thorns
and put it on his head
and arrayed him in a purple robe. John 19:1-6

They meant it as mockery, this clothing of Jesus in purple. But Jesus is a King. And that purple robe he wore not only rightly symbolizes his royal status, it also reminds us of the sacrifice he made at the cross on our behalf.  He deserved to be arrayed in purple, but he humbled himself, suffered, and was crucified to pay our debts and give to us the gift of eternal salvation. As a daughter of the King, that gift is mine.  I pray it is yours, too, and with me you can rejoice that we are heirs to such an inheritance!  Amen.

For this Lenten art journal page, I used scrapbook paper for the background (wood grain by Crate Paper).  The cross is washi tape.  I found some photos for inspiration in sketching out the crown of thorns directly onto my page. I went over my drawing in black Sharpie pen, then colored it in with brown water color pencils.  I added some grey marker for shadows.  I wrote the verse in sharpie and added some shadowing with purple water color pencil.
Here's a few other pages I recently completed in my Lenten Art Journal.  You'll see a larger image if you click on the photos.  I share these daily on Instagram as well as on my Facebook Page.  I invite you to follow me there to see them each day.  Be blessed!