{when inspiration strikes * imitation & soul}

Oops! I went from wanting to play around a bit in photoshop to basically redesigning the entire blog! Oh, well...things usually happen when they're supposed to.

Yesterday, I got the most amazing email. You see, awhile back, I made a video for the Papayariffic Challenge, wrapping up a gift for Sandrine, one of my readers (You readers? Is there grammar for blogs?). I did some fun, quick cuts in editing and even composed my own music with GarageBand.

Then, Kelly emailed me to congratulate me on the video, which I hadn't posted -- just gave the link to the Papaya people. So imagine my surprise when they email me to tell me how much they loved it! You can check it out here on their blog.

I skipped around the store, lost my headseat, and threw out my hip -- but I didn't care. I glowed the rest of the day. To get a compliment is a great thing. And I never thought my little videos were that good....I've seen better. But now I'm thinking my view is skewed by years of schooling in the field.

Okay! If I keep at it, I'll write forever, and I do want to do that, but downstairs, in my NaNoWriMo folder. Here's a bit of a taste of what I've written -- I need to run and get on task before the day's gone!

Click to read more ...

{changing seasons * a stolen moment of free time}

Just popping in to say hi! Writing has taken up all my free time, and life's becoming increasingly busy! I'll try to post some of what I've written tonight along with a nice surprise. I can't believe the thing's grown to over 10,000 words already!

The above page is one of the last from Journal #10. I've been exploring different ways to lay out the journaling, taking cues from typography and design books and ordering elements as I would photos on a layout. It's actually a lot of fun and looks awesome when completed. I have another for you, but it needs to be flipped and I'm just about to run out the door for a massage!

Love you all! I'll be back soon, promise!

{a little different november}

Happy November!

I'm going to be doing things a little differently for the duration of this month, as my creative time is being taken over by my novel for National Novel Writing Month (or, more affectionately, NaNoWriMo). The goal of this insane endeavor is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Which means I need to write 1,667 words a DAY in order to make this goal. And you bet your ass this blog entry totally counts towards that goal.

I've decided to write on creativity, faith, and art journaling, three things that are very important and special in my life and the work I hope to continue to spread until the end of my days. It's ambitious, because I really don't know if I have 50k words worth of it to say. But, as I've been blogging about journaling for about four years now, I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Anyway, getting to the point. Since I'll be writing until my fingers fall off, I grab them, reattach the dead digits, and keep typing, I won't have all that time to come up with the original content I usually have in store for you. So Novemeber will be a mish-mash of excepts and journal pages posted on their own. I hope these glimpses into the inner workings of my mind (scary!) and ideas on journaling in a more fluid, non-blog-entry form will give you the same pause as normal entries.

Things will get back to normal (whatever THAT means!) December first. Or whenever I wake up from my coma after a month of sleep deprivation.

Click on Read More if you'd like to see a bit of yesterday's inaugural writing, where I stumble around, find my footing, and talk about myself way too much.

*ps. if you're interested in reading the daily posts, comment or email me for access. i just don't want it out there floating as i'm actually working on a real book and using this to mine for ideas. requirement for access: sadistic task master ready to keep me on task.

Click to read more ...

{asked and answered}

q & a (october 2009) from kira harding on Vimeo.

I have been a busy little bee! Finally back at it with loads of content to share, I've already edited and saved my next video.

Check out my page on facebook and become a fan. I'll be updating there with little things, here with big things. Sound fair?

I am now off to finish my entry for the Papayariffic Challenge!

{spur of the moment}

Yesterday, I got really, REALLY pumped up to do art, and was bouncing around the studio with a paintbrush in my hand. I then spied a brown paper bag I'd gotten from a store when getting scrapbooking paper, and thought, "Hey, that'd be fun to paint on!"

The bag's something like 22" by 14" or something....MUCH bigger than anything I've painted on before....well, FINISHED (there is a background and inked canvas sitting next to me!). Because it absorbs ink and water so well, I had to dip my brush in the ink and just slather it on....really, it only would spread maybe three inches before it ran out! So I drew and played and warmed up my art muscles.

Click to read more ...