Empower Everyone Art Journal Page with Karen Bearse

Ever have one of those periods in your life when you realize some self-improvement should be the order of the day? I find sometimes the daily grind of life brings me down. I start focusing on the negative because that is what surrounds me. The media, drivers that want to run you off the road so they can get where ever they are going first, obligations pulling in every direction. Times like these I sometimes find myself sucked into a vacuum of negativity. Before I know it I am a member of their team. It really can be a struggle to stay positive, look on the bright side, and be kind. I find art journal is a great way to help bring me back to the person I want to be not what society is trying to make me. Today was a little exercise in art therapy.

One of the best ways to get out of a negative slump is to look outward. That is what this page is reminding me. Empower Everyone. Sometimes it is easier to empower other people than yourself. The over flow creates positivity within. Positivity is contagious. Thinking along those lines I chose the Barbed Wire Circle Frame chippies as my main focus.

Using the bright vibrant Dylusions paints, smoothed on my gesso covered page with a cosmetic sponge. Did you know Southern Ridge now has stencils? For my background I spritzed black through the Bubble Wrap stencil. I forgot I wanted to use the black letters so needing to lighten the images I spritz with some white. The stencil was not lined up exactly and the result is kinda cool.

The chippies were painted with the Dylusions paint & a foam sponge. I cut the circle in half, wanting the words to be the main focus and adhered it with glossy accents. After everything was adhered it felt like something was missing. I added some distress ink on a dabber using the Navajo stencil. Using irresistible embellisher around the words helped them look embedded. Finished the page off by sketchy drawing around the edge & colorizing the word Every. Just a quick fun therapeutic page! I hope you have time to get inky this week!

Southern Ridge Supplies Used:

- Bubble Wrap Stencil

- Navajo Stencil

- Barbed Wire Circle Frame - large

- Polka Dot Swirls

Other Supplies Used:

- Ranger Ink: Dylusions Paints, Dylusions Sprays, Distress Ink and Glossy accents

- Dabber and foam

- Words by Sticker Nation

- Black Gel pen

- Irresistible embellisher in copper.

Remember to play along in the monthly challenge over on the Southern Ridge Trading Company blog. Each month enter for your chance to win 4 designs from the online store - chipboard.ca -$20 (before tax) retail value of YOUR OWN CHOOSING! 

- Karen

Fabulous Flower Art Journal Page with Karen Bearse

I hope you are enjoying your summer! I felt inspired today to document a flower from my garden. This photo was taken using the Hipstamatic app on my Iphone. I like the artsy quality of the photo with the brick and shabby look.

Here is my finished art journal page. I am in the process of making a book using all kinds of different substrates and The Cinch to bind it together when I am finished. This gives me the freedom to design as I go and choose how it will come together at the end.

I started with the back of a square printed envelope by spritzing multiple colours of glimmer mist and letting them run together a bit. This created a nice shimmery background. As this is an envelope and I want to be able to open the other side adding a piece of cardstock with washi tape on the left side, gives a place to punch The Cinch holes but leaves the envelope free.

Did you know that Southern Ridge Trading Co. now has stencils? Let’s play with one! A fun product to use with stencils is glass bead gel. It dries like a clear glue with lots of small glass beads. You can either colour after it dries or before. I decided I wanted to tint the gel with one of the glimmer mist colours I used in my background- Black Cherry. Mix a few spritzes of colour in with the gel using a spatula & spread it across the stencil. The trick to this, is not to over work the gel or it slides under the stencil and the image is less crisp. You can see in my final piece the upper left corner is nice and defined but the upper right corner is a bit sloppy. This happened because I scraped my spatula over the same spot a few times. You really want to just scrape the gel across the stencil once. Note that in this photo the gel looks pink but it dries to a transparent black cherry colour. Make sure you clean your stencil immediately with warm water. Set page aside to dry.

For my chippie leaves “Polka Dot Swirls’ I wanted the colours to be bright and stand out against the darker background. I started by heat embossing in white. That gave me a slick shiny base which is perfect for alcohol inks.

Using 2 separate dabs of colour on my dauber allowed me to vary the colours on the chippies. Simply tap, tap the colour onto the embossed piece. Once the 2 green colours were on, a touch of copper was added in a few spots to give it a bit of metallic grungy look.

For my word chip dabbing on distress paint was a quick easy way to put down colour. I painted the whole word in Bundled Sage to create a bit of a bright background and once dry added Mermaid Lagoon and Lucky Clover again in different spots so I got the multi-colour look. A trick to get your embellies to pop off the page is to use a warm background & cool coloured embellishments. My background colours of purples, pinks and orange are warm colours and the chippies are greens and blues which are cool.

Once my page was assembled and the chipboard glued down using glossy accents, it was time to add some doodling. Using a white paint pen simply outline a few of the stencil shapes and add random dots around the chippies. This helps to brighten the page and adds some interest.

Can you see the little beads in the bead gel? I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and take a look at the new stencils. Don’t forget to join our monthly challenge & you can win the prize! Have an inky fun day!

Southern Ridge Chipboard Supplies:

- Word Mix #1

- Polka Dot Swirls

- Rain Drop Stencil

Other Supplies:

- Tattered Angels: Fully Purple (Glimmer Mist), Black Cherry (Glimmer Mist) and Valencia (Chalkboard mist)

- Tim Holtz Distress Paint by Ranger: Bundled Sage, Mermaid Lagoon and Lucky Clover

- Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks by Ranger: Pesto, Citrus and Copper

- Ranger Ink: Glossy Accents and Emboss It Dabber

- Recollections: Printed Envelope and Washi Tape

- Posca White Paint marker .7mm

- Liquitex Bead Gel

Remember to play along in the monthly challenge over on the Southern Ridge Trading Company blog. Each month enter for your chance to win 4 designs from the online store - chipboard.ca -$20 (before tax) retail value of YOUR OWN CHOOSING! 

- Karen