With All Your Heart, Soul, Mind, Strength
“And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, ‘Which commandment is the most important of all? Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”The second is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.'”
Mark 12:28-31 ESV
If you only do one thing with your life, do this: love God with everything you have. Love Him with all your heart and affections, all your actions and interactions, all your strength and energy, all your physical and mental resources, all your hours and minutes and habits and goals… even if it spends all you have.
It’s the greatest command we could ever live by, more important than any rule or law that man could create, and foundational to every instruction given throughout God’s Word!
Designing the Collection
In approaching this verse, I originally considered writing it out in its entirety. After all, that’s what I do, right? But it’s a rather long verse, and I really didn’t want the unique terms (heart, soul, mind, strength) to get lost in the repetition of all the other little words (ie, “with all your heart and with all your soul and…”). So I decided to simply focus on the four keywords in this verse. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking an artistic approach to lettering God’s truth, especially if it leads to us understanding it better!
So I started by playing around with different lettering styles. I wanted four unique styles that would still look cohesive when placed together, and ended up doing that with a blend of script and printed letters. Although all four words look fairly similar, I added details such as serifs and inline designs to make each word more distinct. And then I got to the really fun part: color and texture!
I tend to stick to a certain color palette each month, and was happy this was a teal blue month. For some reason, I always I think blue goes well with verses about loving God (just how my brain works). I wanted some contrasting colors for the words, and decided on four retro shades of green, yellow, red, and blue to help them pop out from the background.
Next, I pulled in a repeating heart pattern that I created some time ago, and added it in the background. It needed a little more texture, so I used one of my favorite digital texture stamps from a fellow artist. Finally, I wanted some sort of container around the words, so they wouldn’t get lost in the busy background. I decided to continue the heart theme with a digital heart stamp from a fellow creator. I love how the watercolor blobs out from the shape, and gives it a little bit of flair!
Is the piece too busy? Well, probably a little much for some tastes. But when I look at it, I feel like it depicts all the love we should have for God utterly bursting out of our hearts… like an explosion of love for Him. The greatest display of the greatest commandment! But what do you think?
How would you portray this idea of loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?
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PS. You can read my reflections on the verse here.