New Year New Mercies – bible journaling tips & techniques

Greetings 2017! We’re excited to see what you have in store!

One of the things I like most about stepping into a new year is the opportunity it gives us to dream… to look forward with hope and confidence in God’s plan and purposes for our lives. It’s like the calendar gives us permission to push the reset button on our dailly living and make new choices… better choices… clearer focus. It gives us the chance to forgive and be forgiven of any shortcomings in the past and the opportunity to begin again with renewed vision, a clean slate, and a fresh start.

I created the above “New Mercies” printable collection to celebrate the New Year. I am so thankful that the Lord’s mercies are new every morning… and every moment of every day. To me… this is a call to live in the present. To trust God’s mercies for today… not yesterdays mercy…  and not tomorrows. But to walk in the fullness of His love and grace in the now. To be available to Him presently. To let Him have His way in me and through me in the moment. That’s how I want to live 2017. How about you? Yay! Let’s do it together! One day at a time.

Bible Journaling Inspiration and Tips for “His Mercies” Bookmark…

I realize not everyone’s journaling Bible is the same so this may or may not apply to you for this particular verse but you might be able to use this little tip later for another verse or other art. You see… I have the ESV Single Column Journaling Bible published by Crossway and when I went to trace this design for Lamentations 3:23… I discovered that the area in which to journal was a bit larger than I expected as I am most used to the narrow columns of the new testament. Since I wanted to fill the space better, I decided to enlarge the design 120% by adjusting the scale option in my printer window. It was now the perfect size.

You can see here that simply slipping the print under the page made it easy enough to see in order to trace.

A little tip: When journaling in the Old Testament my writing hand does not have anywhere to rest so I find that placing a book of the right depth beside my Bible gives my hand a resting place and I have more stability and control with my lines. I hope this makes sense because it really is helpful!

My favorite pens for inking is the Pigma Micron 005 and the 01. But before I began inking, I lightly drew the word “His” in pencil… extending the flourishes slightly on each side to help fill in the space better.  Sometimes I will lightly draw the words and design with pencil. Other times… if I can see it well enough, the design is not too detailed, and I’m feeling confident… I will trace directly with the pen.

Here you can see how I first inked the word itself and then went back and added the double lines on the downstroke of each letter. Afterward I simply filled in the spaces to finish the letters.

For a tutorial on faux calligraphy you can check out my blog post here.

Here you can see that I moved the “are” over further to the left… again to help fill the space.  I just want to encourage you to see that you do not have to totally follow the printed design but instead use it as a template with the freedom to move things around or add extra flourishes or other design elements with your own personal flair. Seriously… don’t worry about making it perfect but instead make it your own, have fun with it, and enjoy your time with the Lord in the process!

After inking, I colored it in with Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils and used a gray to add some shading and accentuate the steam.

And it’s true…

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22, 23

Here’s a little music to help you memorize this verse if you like!

Thank you for visiting! Would you like to see more posts like this one?  Do you have any particular questions I might be able to help you with? Please leave me a comment to let me know what kind of posts you like to see more of and I will see what I can do about it!!

xoxo
Karla