Perhaps we can look to Saint Elizabeth the New Martyr, who lived a royal life through and through: the daughter of Princess Alice of Britain, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and ultimately Grand Duchess of Russia. From the beginning, her personal matters were very public, and along with the gowns and jewels came a very real sense of moral responsibility. Ultimately the glamour of her life abruptly ended with the assassination of her husband, the Grand Duke Sergei. By choice, she had her valuables sold and given to the poor. Giving up ball gowns for a monastic habit, she founded a monastery and hospital and, while she still had her royal title, freely gave up all of the benefits in return for a life of prayer and ministry. The Bolshevik’s ultimately took her earthly title by throwing her and the nun Barbara into a mine-shaft. The light of Christ burned on as the local villagers heard her singing hymns hours after being thrown in that wretched hole. She may have left royal life, but she never left the court of our Lord. Researching a story like hers, I think, “This is what I want my children to imitate.”
The style:
When the three of us met to discuss style, we looked at an assortment of artistic imagery of saints. Orthodox icons are always a centerpiece in terms of guidance and church teaching, but we didn’t adhere to the exact line work or inverse perspective that icons require… Marian painstakingly drew every saint included in the coloring book with incredible detail and precision. The saints are shown during the royal season of their life; Some look similar to icons, while others are taken from actual photographs of the saints. The borders were drawn by me, and I used a style I would describe as “modern folk art.” Each border tells a story with plants and flowers from the region, hobbies of the saint, or important pieces from their life. As a team, we talked a lot about how we wanted this coloring book to be a tool for parents and a source of discovery for children. The pages are perforated so the saints and their stories can be torn out and shared.
In writing the saints' lives, we decided to go with a style of language that would read like a story for young children. Dialogue was included in certain instances to give the reader a sense of each saint’s own voice and spirit. The stories read more like a work of literature with a definite sequence over the course of the saints' lives. The narrative style lends itself better to early literacy skills that are appropriate for many young children. Caroline integrated the two artistic styles with manuscript lettering and made the pages flow seamlessly from one saint to the next. The arrangement of each page shows an ebb and flow from the image of the saint to the story of his or her life.
What we love:
The impetus behind the work we do at Draw Near Designs is almost always multifaceted. The guiding questions are usually: Is it beautiful? Is it educational? Would we buy this for our own children? With these guidelines, the coloring book has turned into something that can be used in multiple ways. I envision it as a homeschool resource during our morning readings and as an engaging coloring sheet later in the day. Many of the saints we chose were married to one another or somehow related (eg. Abigail and David, Emperor Justinian and Queen Theodora, The Romanov family and St. Elizabeth). There’s a real opportunity for making connections, inferences, and predictions from one story to another.
Take a look at the drawings, read the stories, and notice the humanity that is woven throughout this coloring book. These were real people who lived lives as kings, queens, and emperors… but they also extended their roles as leaders beyond earthly barriers into saintly examples. I pray that through their lives, my children might learn to separate the wheat from the chaff in our modern culture of all that glitter and shines, and notice Godly virtues that allow us to glow from the inside out.