Bible Journaling: How To Trace with Graphite Paper

Did you trace when you were a young girl? In this Bible journaling tutorial, you will learn how to draw using the tracing technique and graphite paper.

Tracing is a perfect technique for the artist-in-you who desires to worship God through Bible journaling.

You might not feel like you are overly talented in your creative journaling skills and that’s OK!

This is NOT about how artistic you are. Journaling art is supposed to be enjoyed and if you are bogging yourself down with how beautiful someone else’s artwork is, you are totally missing the point.

The fun thing is that even if you have intermediate skills, this ‘How To Trace’ tutorial is for you too!

In the tutorial video below, I demonstrated how to trace, but I mixed up the direction the graphite paper had to face. I didn’t scrap the video but redid the tracing right there in the video for you to see!

I’m no expert!

I am called by God to write and draw closer to Jesus through teaching and inspiring you to journal with me.

O Lord My Strength!

I like to read the chapter or page and learn about what God has for me that day. This doesn’t have to take an enormous amount of time. If you think you have to spend a couple of hours on journaling each day, you will avoid it most of the time.

Before drawing this page, I read Psalm 11 and highlighted the verses that God impressed on my heart. I might come back another day, or another time through Psalms and delve deeper into this chapter.

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I am saved from my enemies. Psalm 18:1-3

Our strength is not in ourselves but it is in God!

That applies to your artistic ability. The strength and ability to express yourself artistically comes from God. He is not concerned whether or not you have an ‘artistic bone’ in your body.

What God cares about is whether you are creating and worshiping Him.

As I illustrated these three verses, I noticed all the ways that the word, strength, is shown to provide us with protection. I put them in a bulleted list to help them stand out for you.

No matter what you are going through, God is your strength and will be your Rock or Fortress. Each of the words below creates a picture of strength.

The Lord is your:

Strength
Rock
Fortress
Deliverer
Refuge
Shield
Horn of your salvation
Stronghold

And you may call on the name of the Lord because He is worthy to be praised and will save you from your enemies!

Learn how you can delight in reading your Bible!

How To Trace with Graphite Paper

Tracing is an easy way to draw flowers or many other things when you don’t feel artistic enough to draw.

In using the ‘trace’ technique, you actually will learn to draw. Just don’t put the graphite picture upside down as I did in the video!

If you do, just do what I did and redo it.

This is not the tracing technique where the element to trace is under the page. That is possible but much harder because Bible pages are usually thicker.

With graphite paper and a ballpoint pen, the flower is transferred to the Bible or notebook. I like using a ballpoint pen because it is sharper than a pencil for this method.

Once you have traced the flower, remove the graphite paper and save it to use again. You may use it over and over.

Then take a Micron or Gel Pen and outline over the flower you traced into your Bible.

Next, color it in and voila! You have a beautiful start to your journaling page.