Bible Journaling Colossians 3v12-14 with Free Traceable Template!

So this week I've been inspired by my quiet times to do an entry for Colossians 3v12-13. 

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselveswith compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 

 If I have a verse that stands out during my quiet time I write in my diary the verse and any images that come to mind.

I've already got an image in my head for the Armour of God like this but on a soldier, so I thought I'd adapt it and make it for me instead. (Yes the character is supposed to look a little bit like me!). To make the character like me I chose hair and clothes that reflect me (I'm rarely seen out of jeans and a hoodie!) and set about creating something.

My first step in the process was to google some images, and I wanted to find some simple faceless characters. Looking down through Google images I spotted one I liked the look of and I saved it for later. -As an aside, looking for images on Google is like looking for something in TKMaxx, you know there is bound to be something there that you're looking for, but it takes a bit of perseverance to find it!

Next I wanted some help in getting the proportions of a person right, so I Googled that too.

Next was how to draw a hoodie and jeans.

Just to be clear, I have no intrinsic ability to see something and then just put it down on paper. If I have an idea I Google it and then copy elements of lots of different things down until I get something I like. I trace things sometimes too. 

Once I'd got the things I needed I started to sketch out onto my grid paper the size of my margin so I knew the size I was working in. A simple HB pencil and a decent rubber are all you need. I fiddled with it until I was happy with it and then went over the design with a fine liner to make it easier to trace in my Bible. At this stage I decided I didn't like the feet and had to google cartoon trainers!

Deciding what to use to colour the image was my next dilemma. Would I use watercolours, or my newly discovered Caran Dache Neoart crayons, or maybe even some Promarkers. Had I been doing this on card I think I would have gone straight for the Promarkers, but I haven't tested my pro markers extensively yet. I've discovered they don't bleed if applied in a single layer over Matt Gel Medium, but to colour properly with them they need layering, and I'm not 100% sure if the Bible Paper can take that yet. The alternative is to trace onto some thin cardstock or paper and stick it in the margin instead. 
I decided to do a test sheet to check which of my fineliners and pens would smudge when I used alcohol markers or water colours and water based markers.
This is what I found

For the alcohol based pens (Promarkers for me) the best choice was the cheapest pen I own (you can get 5 fineliners for 79p at Home Bargains) followed by a sharpie, but for the water colours and water based pens (Mozart brush pens here) the best choice was either Sharpies or Tombow Calligraphy pen. As I'd decided to do watercolour I chose the Tombow to use in my bible.

I used my white Sakura gelly pen to add highlights and some interest to the background.

I decided when I was doing this that it would make a good template to use at my upcoming Bible Journaling event, so did a neat version to scan and print off. I thought you might like the option to use it too, so here's the Free Download!

Download Image

And once I'd done this I tried out my Promarkers too and made a bookmark!

I hope you like it, please leave a comment if you use it and link in a picture :)