The ArtiFacts Project, Art Journal With Karen Bearse

I am participating in the Artifacts Collaboration that is being put on by Seth Apter I am a big fan of his products & have been lucky enough to take a few of his classes. The idea is to create a book using whatever style you choose & do a page or so a month to document your artistic endeavours. Today I have a tour of the first page I have done in my book.

This was a fun page to create, as I just did whatever I wanted, using some of my favourite products & techniques as I went. The challenge I had was to put so many photos on 1 page. This is my artistic journey for January. I am playing catch-up but have decided that is okay. As a busy mom & designer I can give myself permission to just have fun & play too, being a bit behind lets me look back with fresh eyes!

After scraping gesso randomly across my craft page it was time to add colour. Knowing the photos were going in the center I started adding acrylic paint and stencil work around the edges.

More stencil work & more colours. Taking crackle paste & tinting it with acrylic paint seemed like a good thing to do. Just building layers.

Next up embellishments. Now that my background was shaping up it was time to add some chippies. I wanted to see what the colour difference would be if I only gessoed some of the gear. The result was unexpected & needs to be researched further. The gear is clearly darker & less embossed in an area. Was it because the powder wasn’t distributed evenly or was it the gesso?

Next up was the Retro Lightbulb. I embossed the base with Hammered Metal which looks totally realistic. The light part was Iridescent Shimmer. You can also see what some of my finishing doodles look like in this photo.

The funky flower branch was first gessoed, dried & then coloured with watercolour markers. A bit of water was added with a fine brush to blend the colours. The flower part was coloured first with a blue marker & than embossed with Fractured Ice. A gemstone was glued in the middle to add some pizazz.  

Once all the embellishments were adhered final touches were in order. Doodling & mark making. You can see some of the highlighting here.

One last shot of some of the products used. If you want to see the cover I put on my book & links to other posts about it you can click here.

Southern Ridge Trading Company Supplies Used:

- Gears 2

- Retro Lightbulbs

- Mina Branch

Other Supplies Used:

- Seth Apter Stencils by Stencil Girl

- Emerald Creek Craft Supplies: Embossing Powder and Gemstones

- Marvy Uchida: LePlume II Watercolour Markers and Deco Colour Liquid Gold & Silver

- DecoArt: Acrylic Paint, Crackle Paste & Matte Medium

- Tombow: Liquid Glue & Fastener Tabs

If you want to see more of what I have been up to you can find me at karenbearse.blogspot.com with links to my other social media. Have an inky day!

- Karen

Playing with Patina Effect Paste with Karen Bearse

Karen Bearse here today with a fun & quick tutorial on how to create patina pieces using Prima Marketing Patina Effect Paste. This is a wonderful mix media kit with 3 paints that create multiple patina’s without using a chemical reaction. There is also a rust kit available.

Here is the project I used to hold my cool finished patina chip. This tag is actually part of a 2 tag technique class I will be teaching at Goldenshill Papercrafts on May 23rd, in Clifton, VA. There are a lot of Prima paints & powders in this class but today we focus on patina!

I was playing with some chippies trying to get used to this product. I realized this is a great way to play & create embellishments to be used in future projects. The best part, you get to hear what I learned in my experiments. The kit contains a blue, mint-green, & brass paste. Each of them has a different consistency. The blue is slightly gritty, the mint-green very gritty & the brass is more of a heavy bodied acrylic.

Step 1: Starting with a gear chip I painted it with the blue paste and let it dry. Tip: I have learned that the best way to do this is to dab & pounce the paste on in random places. It creates more texture. Leave some spots open for the next colour. If you leave it wet & go to step 2 and do the same, letting some of the paint overlap it gives you a more patina look as the colours blend a bit.

Step 2: I may have had some focus issues as I took pictures of different chippies but you will get the idea of where I am going with this. Add the mint-green in random spots. Dab & pounce it on  to give the paste that texture. Remember the idea is to recreate rusty/patina metal so there are lumps & bumps in that. Let dry.

Step 3: Add the brass paint. Tip-I learned the best way is to apply a small amount of paint with a dry brush. Start by just lightly brushing over the bumpy areas hitting the high points & distressing bits of the edges. Add more paint to taste as you go stopping to have a look at the overall piece until you have the results you want.

Just play with the product to get used to it, there is a learning curve so have fun practicing. In my examples above I created 3 different looks.

#1- I let the paints dry in between application & used the brass colour sparingly. The effect is very bright & colourful.

#2-I applied the first 2 without drying in between. I let the colours overlap somewhat and added much more brass. The effect is much grungier & darker, more of a true patina.

#3- I painted the blue on smoothly, stenciled the mint & then added the brass. The mint even though it is fairly wet held up really well with a stencil leaving a nice gritty yet crisp image. This creates more of a mix media rather than a patina effect but gives you another way to use the product.

Here is a close up of my patina chair. Yes I realize the odds of having a copper Adirondack chair on the beach are slim to none but remember this is art! Anything goes. I hope you get a chance to play with this fun kit & make some patina. You can also try the Rust Effects kit that is applied the same way but gives you… you guessed it, rust!

Southern Ridge Trading Company Supplies Used:

- Med Gears

- Gears 2

- Adirondack Chairs

Other Supplies Used:

- Prima Marketing: Finnabair Patina Effects Paste

- Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous: Mini Stencil Set #9

If you want to see more of what I have been up to you can find me at karenbearse.blogspot.com with links to my other social media. Have an inky day!

- Karen

Heart Felt Tag with Dylusions by Karen Bearse

Hello Karen Bearse here today with a fun, inky heart felt tag. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and this is the perfect attachment for your present, or to go on your scrapbook page or in your art journal.  With a few simple techniques you can make your loved ones a tag or make a card.

This bright and cheery tag has a picture of my kids when they were younger. I started this with a few product ideas and went from there.

Dylusions are a bright, highly pigmented acrylic paint with a rich smooth finish. The Mixed Media Tags are the perfect surface to work on. The large tags size #10 are 8.5” tall which allows for lots of fun. I wanted to play with the Southern Ridge Trading Co. stencils, chippies and maybe some sprays.

Start by picking up a pea size amount of paint with a baby wipe, a little goes a long way. Smooth the paint, in this case Bubblegum, over the tag. Excess paint can be wiped on another tag or a wipe off journal.

Choose a second colour and using a cosmetic foam and a small amount of paint (Squeezed Orange) dab through a SRTC stencil (6x6 Rain Drop).

Repeat with a 3rd colour (crushed grape) and a different stencil (6x6 Fish Net). The beauty of this paint is it dries quickly, the colours work well together and each layer is vibrant. I used the heart chippie as a stencil & spritzed with Dylusions sprays in White Linen. This spray colour is unique & has a metal ball in it that needs to be shaken well for best use. Once the white was dry I spritzed again over the heart chippie in Crushed Grape.

I liked the look of the spray so added more using the small 3x3 X stencil. Once this is nice and dry doodling is a great way to go. I achieved this by simply outlining the shapes & adding some marks here & there. I did add more stencil work with Vibrant Turquoise paint & the 3x3 4 leaf clover stencil. I love the pop of this colour and carried it through the rest of the tag.

Time for some chippies!! First up was one of the gear chips which was simply painted with the turquoise paint and distressed with the pink. The heart charm was painted with gesso as a foundation & than painted with the pink. Love how this looks. These were adhered through the tag hole.

Emboss the Tanessha Heart. Use the paint to adhere the emboss powder. I did this in sections, painting each section with different colours as in the photos, than sprinkling some Silvester Kracher on letting some of the paint show through. Black Marble, Bubble Pink & gesso. Trim your photo to fit & adhere underneath the heart. Adhere your favourite word to the heart.

Let’s add flowers. The beauty of making a tag with these techniques is the ability to customize any flowers to match. Simply spritz white flowers with water & dab on same Dylusions Sprays that were used on the background. Each flower got it’s own colour & was sprinkled with a bit of Charred Gold Emboss powder & heat set. This gave the flowers depth & a grungy look.

The final touch was a small tag, altered using the same paint techniques & colours, with my title attached. Adding dots around the tag gave it that extra something. I hope you enjoyed my tutorial & try it out on either a tag, card or art journal page.

Southern Ridge Trading Company Supplies Used:

- 6x6 Rain Drop Stencil

- 6x6 Fish Net Stencil

- 3x3 4 Leaf Clover Stencil

- 3x3 X Stencil

- Taneesha Heart

- Wood Words of Christmas: Joy

- Gears 2

Other Supplies Used:

- Dylusions Paints: Bubblegum Pink, Squeezed Orange, Crushed Purple and Vibrant Turquoise

- Dylusions Sprays: White Linen, Bubblegum Pink, Squeezed Orange, Crushed Purple and Vibrant Turquoise

- Dylusions Mixed Media Tags Size #10

- Emerald Creek Craft Supplies: Silvester Kracher Embossing Powder, Charred Gold Embossing Powder and Metal Heart Brads

- Prima Marketing Flowers

- Tombow: Liquid Aqua Glue

Happy crafting!

- Karen