Getting Back Into It... That Would Be Making It... Art, I Mean

It's been months since I did anything even remotely creative.  I have been concentrating on working out and changing the landscape of my body since the beginning of March 2013.  Everything else has taken a back seat to my body modification project.  So far, I have lost 45 pounds and about 35 inches overall.  I took beginning photos of myself, and my son just took photos of me just yesterday.  I have been keeping track of my weight and my measurements for about 6 months now, so I have plenty of info to start on this new record of my progress.  I am about a third of the way to goal... another 60 pounds and I think I'll be closer to my internal image of what I want. 

I have had this idea of making a "Body Journal" for quite awhile and finally got the book sewn together.  I took a vintage photo album cover and turned it into my cover.  Three signatures of water color paper and now it's ready to be used.  Just have to start painting and gesso-ing the pages.  It will be cool to have a visual record of this long and challenging journey.

 Cover, measurements and inspirational text to include in my Body Journal

Inside pages

 Spine with exposed stitching... long strings will have beads attached

The second art project has been recycling security envelopes and vintage photos into frame-able art pieces. These are the first stages - with more embellishment to follow.  Have an art show coming up in November, so I've got to hustle on these....

Vertical format - love the bright colors

Women and Children

Horizontal format - more muted tones.

All for today, my lovelies...

see you soon <3 p="">

Venice 2014

here are a few photos of my travel journal for the trip I want to take to venice in 2014.  this is my ticket to venice journal for the on-line class that mary ann moss taught - 

great class with all kinds of videos!!

i used a vintage photo album cover  - which i cut in half and then created a spine for

folded over - bones of the journal

here are six signatures - i ended up only using 5 and kind of rearranged them just a bit

half way through my diamond stitch binding

journal fully bound and fanned out - yeah!!

the cover

inside one of the signatures

painted page in one of the five signatures

recycled calendar page and some scrapbook paper

i will finish up tomorrow by making the closure and filling the pockets with ephemera to put in the journal when i take my trip...  feels good to have this put together.

i'll show a few more photos when it's all prepped for the trip :-)

ciao for now babies,

kso

xoxoxo

Never to Old to Learn New Things...

well today i just bit the bullet - took the bull by the horns - jumped in feet first - and any other cliche one can think of...

i made a video of my bermuda journal.  hadn't a clue about what i was doing.  didn't even know if my camera would record sound.  dug out the old tripod and pushed the record button and this is what i got...

Bermuda 2012 from Kim Owens on Vimeo.

hope it works

i guess you can teach an old dog new tricks or more correctly this old dog taught herself a new trick :-)

ciao for now babies
kso
xoxoxoxo

Fabulous Find

i have been resisting the pull of thrift store shopping for a few weeks now... i have so much stuff to use up i cut myself off.  today i had this overwhelming urge and followed it.  to my delight i discovered these books from 1961 and thought they would make fabulous travel journals.  i will gut them and make some wonderful "ticket to venice" style repositories.

 four books with lovely and colorful printed covers

 british isles and western europe

the near and the middle east

baltic states and central europe

southern asia and the far east

i think the graphics are just stunning and i can't wait to play with them...

ciao for now,

kim 

xoxoxoxo

My Bermuda Travel Journal

In December I enrolled in a class to be taught by Mary Ann Moss, of Dispatch from LA fame.  She entitled this class "Ticket to Venice" and you can find the link over on the sidebar.  The class involved constructing a travel journal from start to finish and travelling with Mary Ann as she took her winter holiday to Venice.  We tracked her adventures through her blog posts, emailed postcards and the videos she made while she was in Venice.  It was an amazing experience and has inspired me to start saving for my own trip to Venice in 2014.

My first travel journal for MAM's class is not for a trip to Venice - that will be my second one.  I am in the hunting and gathering stage for my Venice journal.

In the meantime, I need to finish this Bermuda Travel Journal...

This is my diamond binding stitch - which I am very pleased with!!

The cover is not done.  I think I will take some sand paper to it and make it a bit more weathered.  The foundation for the cover is a recycled Ritz cracker box.  I began this journal a few months back and never got beyond the cover.  I constructed the cover using suggestions by an art journalist in the UK... check out her blog at Jennibellie  She has a lot of really fun ideas.

This is a shot of the journal fanned out so you can see all the sea blue and golden colors.

My goal was to use Mary Ann's techniques and ideas to finish my travel journal for a trip I took with my kids and a group of friends in the summer of 2011.  In honor of my friend Derek's 50th birthday, we went on a cruise to Bermuda - there were 19 of us all together and it was a blast!!  

This is the first page of the first signature -

 I painted it with the colors of the houses we saw in Bermuda.  

The flowers were made using a plastic thread spool as a stamp - I thought is was an interesting shape.  The very left blue paper is a bag from the shop on the cruise ship which I used to line the inside of the cover.  The butterfly and flower illustration comes from an old Haiku book from the 1970's.

Page 2 and 3 of the first signature...

For this folio I used a photo of the Statue of Liberty from the 1940's, washi tape and an art card my friend made for me.  She gave it to me as we were sailing down the Hudson River past the statue.  I have left plenty of blank space to transfer my journal writing into the travel journal.

All for tonight my lovelies,

kim

xoxoxo

... more tomorrow

Word for the Year

after much thought i have finally chosen a word and it fits with my 365 days of writing project.  i have written in the past about feeling very disconnected over the past 18 months - maybe longer.  so after really thinking about what i want to do this year it came to me that i needed to take steps to reconnect with life.  i can't just wait for this feeling to magically happen.  i have to be the driving force.  my word for the coming year is

"connections"

i want to forge...

connections to friends...

connections to family...

connections to my children...

connections to my creativity...

connections to the world...

connections to my spirituality...

connections to my body...

basically connections to life...

so today....

i will go out to dinner with my friend angela

and i will make some art

ciao my lovelies...
kim

xoxoxo

Day 5/360

so far, this has been an easy project to keep up with... granted it is only the first week!!  when i first thought of doing this i wanted something simple - something that didn't take a lot of artistic prep time.  the more art involved the longer it takes for me to complete a project - i get bogged down in the details.

every night i wrap up my day by writing a quick note to the boy and the girl - then i write a list of 5 things i am grateful for.  it's a nice way to finish the day.  the girl has been surprisingly respectful and calm this week.

i am hopeful.  we had nice conversation on day three of this project - that hasn't happened in many months.

today i am going to make some art and work in my ticket to venice journal - was gathering italian stuff last night...

ciao for now,
kim
xoxoxo

365 day project

2012 was not the most fabulous year - nothing bad happened.  it ended with a splutter  and never really got going the way i imagined it would.  just couldn't get focused on anything.  i always seemed to be running behind the bus. trying to catch it at the next stop.  i ended up feeling disconnected all year.

the boy is out of high school and still living at home. going to college locally.  working part-time.  so i am trying to navigate this parenting thing while not being an overbearing parent.  freedom with checking in - odd place to be. more new territory.

the girl has been a challenge.  i am a passenger on the teenage roller coaster ride and i am not enjoying the experience.  so this part of my life is very different from what i have with the boy.  still finding my way back to the little charmer she once was.

a lot of folks in the art groups i belong to are doing some sort of 365 day project for 2013 - thought i would too.  my 365 project will be to write daily letters to the boy and the girl.  not pages and pages - but little notes written on colorful paper and placed in a special box.  my notes will not be about the things they don't do, or the mistakes they make.  they will be notes of love, laughter, reminiscent thoughts of childhood, compassion and joy.  i hope to strengthen my relationship with the boy and to find a way back to the girl.

for myself there is a box to place my written notes of gratitude each day.  everyone needs a little love.

day one is under my belt... notes written and boxes delivered... 364 more.

peace to you -l
kso
xoxoxo