Genesis 1 - In the beginning... God created

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

 - Genesis 1:1

The creation story is one that seems to polarise opinion, even among Christians. Personally, I believe that it is not a completely literal account of how everything was created, but that the essentials (that God was the force breathing everything into being) are true. I have no problem reconciling science and the Bible, and no issue with what some people see as conflicting time scales over whether the Earth was created in a day or over tens of thousands of years. I think the best way to explain this is through a CS Lewis quote from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

“Do not look sad. We shall meet soon again."
"Please, Aslan", said Lucy,"what do you call soon?"
"I call all times soon" said Aslan; and instantly he was vanished away.”

God can all all times soon, and to Him there is no reason why He shouldn't call 13.7 billion years a day if He feels so inclined! Also, before the sun was created, how long was a day? It could have been as long as it needed to be.

I wanted to do a two-page spread for this chapter, as it covers so much in 31 verses.

For the first page - the first page I will see when I start reading the Bible - I wanted to do something different to what I usually do. I had some washi tape I had bought for using on Christmas cards, which was black with silver stars and moons across it. I know technically that 'in the beginning' there was nothing, but it seemed to fit with the theme of creation. I layered strips to create the background for the first page, then used a white gel pen to do the lettering 'In the beginning...'.

I got the idea for the images on the second page from a calendar I had, which had outline lettering with more detailed patterns inside than outside the letters. I drew a generic landscape in the background and added in stars, plants and fish inside the letters to try to represent different parts of creation. (I didn't include people in the picture as chapter 2 goes into more detail about how God created Adam and Eve). I used my Inktense pencils to colour in the images.