All my ladies - well two of them Scenes 10 & 13

One of the things that started to frustrate me after a while was not just designs I couldn't get right, but I got bored of beards and male characters. Obviously there were quite a few key ones that I wasn't concerned about including, and sometimes the male characters were offstage like Noah, but I wanted some prominent female figures and not just Mary and Elizabeth and Eve, all important but mothers or progenitors. So I went on a search and I found two slightly obscure but significant figures: Deborah (old testament) and Priscilla (Acts of the Apostles). I liked them because their prized features were not entirely about family life:

• Priscilla, with her husband Aquila, was a teacher and early leader of the church and are mentioned equally and predominantly together
• Deborah was a prophet and leader

For scene 10 with Priscilla and Aquila the design was pretty basic. I wanted them in front of a house that they had which was one of the earliest churches.

The sketch here also shows how impatient I am, I was at my parents, so rather than find proper paper, I sliced open some envelopes and used those.

I decided to symbolism this again by using the fabric with writing on it as well as Priscilla with a book in her hand.

The other thing I decided, linking into the "no more beards" thing was that I decided with these Roman sounding names, they either were Roman or they had become Romanised, so I gave Aquila a clean shaven look and left Priscilla's hair uncovered, or perhaps covered with a wig!

I don't really think about scale when I'm making things but it occurred to me at this point that I make very small pics, and I put a 10p coin next to Priscilla's head for scale. It's pretty teeny tiny.

(Bible references for the pair Acts 18:2, 18, 26, Romans 16:3, 1 Corinthians 16:19, 2 Timothy 4:19)

For Deborah (scene 13) I went through several design iterations starting from this idea of Deborah as ordering the leader of her army to go into battle. I started with a sketchy army in action but I quickly realised I am terrible at these kinds of large scenes and also, I had no idea how to do this with fabric.

So I simplified the design to just two figures - Deborah herself and the leader of the troops - Barak.

I then wasn't too sure what to dress him in or what weapons he should carry so I did some googling and found this picture from the tomb of Khnumhotep II of what might be Israelites and I basically stole the whole clothing and bow idea from that.

It was also a key image of her to be seated under a palm tree, and I thought it would be fun if this linked in with a rest stop on Joseph and Mary's journey,  under a palm tree. So I made that key to the placement of those two scenes.

(Bible references for Deborah: Judges 4:1-16; Judges 5:1-31).

Another thing I decided to do to improve the number of women was to add in Sarah to my image of Abraham, after all he would not have had any descendants without her, and to make the innkeeper who wouldn't let the holy family stay a woman as well.