Tyndale recently sent me a copy of their new Inspire: Proverbs for review. This is a beautiful coloring/journaling book with the full text of the book of Proverbs in the NLT translation, large lined margins, and many beautiful line art illustrations.
ISBN: 9781496426642
Tyndale provided this book free for review. I was not required to give a positive review, only an honest one. All opinions are my own.
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This book is available at
and many local Bible bookstores
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Construction & Text
Those of you familiar with Inspire: Psalms will already know almost exactly what this book is like. This is a matching volume of the book of Proverbs. I hope Tyndale and Christian Art continue this line but have no idea which book of the Bible I would like them to do next.
Inspire: Proverbs has 96 pages, measures 9.75″ x 9.75′ x .5″, and weighs 1 pound, 6 ounces. It has a heavy cardstock cover with purple foil accents. The interior has thick white artist grade paper and a glued binding. Glued bindings are normal for this style book and this one seems to be well done. This book will lay flat easily.
The text is set in a single column format. It is an 11-point font. Almost every page of text has a verse or two that is done in a slightly larger calligraphy style font with a few key words done in open calligraphy that you could color to match your artwork. Any of the margins without artwork measure 4 inches wide and have 44 light evenly spaced lines that are 2.5″ long.
While it doesn’t have end papers because of the binding type the inside of both covers has a beautiful floral for you to color that matches the front cover art. An illustrated presentation page is included.
Artwork
This book was designed for you to interact with, whether through coloring, writing, drawing, adding embellishments or some other form of expression. Tyndale has included an introduction page with some basic instructions for those new to creative journaling.
The artwork is the main feature of this book. Every 2 page spread has a line art illustration. Some of the artwork fills one of the margins, some are full-page illustrations, and a few drawings run along the bottom of one (or both) of the pages. Besides the in-text illustrations, Tyndale has included 10 extra full-page drawings, 7 cards, and 6 bookmarks bound in the back of the book. All the extra artwork has a blank page on the back and is designed for framing, gift-giving, or any other creative use you can come up with.
Using Various Art Mediums
I know one of my major questions when looking at a book of this type is how well my various art supplies will work in it so I’ve included a few examples.
Pencils (as always) work wonderfully.
So did the gel pens without any show through. The ink from the gold pen I used wanted to move around and I ended up smearing it a bit and then outlining the letters with a thin tip black marker since they had become a bit hard to make out.
Watercolors did not bleed through even when I saturated the page slightly more than I usually would in a spot or two.
This entry I composed with gelatos, stickers, pigment ink, stamps, and both a Staedler pigment liner and calligraphy pens. A few of these are obviously fine for any paper (stickers, gelatos) and I haven’t had issues with my Staedler pens in my Bibles yet, but I have had show through and even bleed through problems with the inexpensive calligraphy pen and my pigment inks. Neither of them showed even a little on the back side of this page. (You can see for yourself in the photo of Proverbs 1 near the beginning of this post.)
The wetter mediums did cause a small amount of page buckle but that is already starting to press out on the watercolor page. You will be able to use a much wider variety of art products on this paper than typical Bible paper. I would recommend a Bible mat (or wax paper or a small stack of paper) between pages just in case when using wet mediums. Many of us like to test questionable products on back pages and the space around the cut-outs on the last few pages would be perfect for that.
Final Thoughts on the Inspire: Proverbs
This is a beautiful edition of the book of Proverbs. Inspire: Proverbs makes a great inspirational gift. It is a good way to combine coloring and other artwork with Bible study. I can also highly recommend it for those who want to try Bible art journaling but aren’t quite ready to draw in their regular Bible.
Tyndale provided this book free for review. I was not required to give a positive review, only an honest one. All opinions are my own.
_________________________________________________________
This book is available at
and many local Bible bookstores
_________________________________________________________
Photography by hannah C brown