Archive for the 'Bunnies' Category

Sketch: More Rabbit Ears.

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on July 13, 2009
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Kat Johnston Sketch: More rabbit ears.

Just another picture of rabbit ears… They’re fun.

You know, some days, I feel like an utter fake. The pictures I put up here, they are just two second sketches, in most cases. Then I go browsing some of my favourite blogs (and a few new, as well), only to find people using their web spaces to display the most beautiful works, in progress and completed. Meanwhile, my little corner of the internet is chock full of things drawn on scraps of paper. Now don’t get me wrong, I like things drawn on scraps of paper, but I feel soooo inferior compared to some out there!

What is even more frustrating is this. After over 6 weeks of construction, of builders in and out of our house to fix things at the instructions of the owners, I still have a studio filled with boxes because parts of our house have had to remain free for the builders to come in and tear down walls and ceilings and paint and so forth. I am just so sick of it. I couldn’t even navigate my way into that room if I tried and it is driving me nuts. Throw into that the fact that we have been paying full rent while they come in and disturb our lives to this gigantic degree, and I’m at the end of my tether. For a job that was quoted ‘five days’, this is dragging on way too much… and the disturbance to our lives is above and beyond merely intrusive.

I want to get out of here. I want to get out of this house, and into a new one, to make a fresh start and hopefully find owners who have at least the tiniest regard for the people who pay to live in their property. I understand that in the end, this is not ‘our’ house - but while we live here, it is. I would love to go over to their house, and disturb their lives just as much as they have done ours… to leave their doors unlocked for hours when nobody is home, as the builders have done here, or show up on their roof unexpected in the early hours of the morn. I’d love to tear down walls and restrict the movement of their pets because suddenly their home is unsecured for days on end… or leave huge trails of debris, dust and mess lying over simply everything, because of course it is not the builder’s responsibility to clear up after themselves.

I’m just tired. So incredibly tired, and so incredibly worn. And I’ve had about enough. To top it all off? The rental market sucks. Someone fetch me a voodoo doll, I think I need to do some pinning.

Sanu: Ok… I’m going to start posting some Sanu things here again…

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on July 11, 2009
in Bunnies, Digital, Sanu Stuff and second life
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Sanu in SL: Oh yeah... this is one kick-ass looking sign, don't you think? This is a competition for the truly creative!

Because I am seriously too lazy to maintain two blogs. I know, I know, I should really learn how to maintain the two, but it is harrrrrd… so occasionally you’re going to get something like this sneak through. Besides… I’m really proud of this sign! I mean… come on. How cool is this sign, guys?

As many of you may know, I maintain a little hobby business in Second Life, and as a part of that, I am holding a little competition. Sanu has held four ‘quests’ since it opened (I’m not including the mini-quest… it was just a space filler!), and there is now a competition on to see how people have been inspired by them! The rules are simple: make an image inspired by one part of a story, and go to town with the creativity. The images will be posted on the Sanu in SL flickr group (which can be found here) for everyone to see, and the grand prize winners will get a whole swag of goodies. Full rules and all that can be found in the Sanu flickr group discussion section, too.

So anyhow… that is my bit of creativity for this morning, though the sign was started last night. Something was just off for a little while there, and it had me stumped, but now I think I have it looking rather snappy. Yay Sanu!

Edit: I’ll have to replace the image with a properly resized one at some point, because the automatic resizing that occurs when a larger image is used on the blog has made some of the smaller text blurry… and it isn’t actually blurry! Uhhh… so… ignore the blurriness, ok?

Body Art: Hearts and gears and bunnies, oh my!

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on June 15, 2009
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Kat Johnston Body Art: This is what happens when I get given a body to work on, and a packet of prettily coloured sharpies.

Finally! Finally I get to play around properly with prettily coloured sharpies… all over someone’s back. Started with the heart and went out from there. It grew!

I’m actually really loving playing around with sharpies on people doing these ’sorta not really permanent marker tattoo’ thingies. It took a little bit to get used to the way the coloured sharpies work and blend, but I think I’m starting to get the gist of it. When given the chance, I think I have a far better idea of how I’m going to draw a phoenix on a certain someone - though they’ll have to give me a bigger area to work with this time! Please?

In celebration of working with pretty pretty markers, I’ve created a new category for such things, entitled ‘Body Art’. That way they don’t just get thrown straight into the ‘Sketches’ category and that’s it. I figure that my friends will lend me forbearance for a while longer to draw all over them, so there is a fairly decent likelihood that I might post more pictures of them here. Yay for friends who tolerate my eccentricities!

I think that’s about it for today… enjoy the picture, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Phew!

Sketch: Little Bunny Bumbleberry.

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on June 3, 2009
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Kat Johnston Sketch: Little Bunny Bumbleberry is very cute indeed. He likes to run under the trees and collect up all the seed.

Ok, so I probably won’t get any awards for awesome post titles this week… but that is ok. I’m posting fairly early today because I’ve just had the owner and real-estate agent for my home come over and poke around all over. I understand that it needs to be done - there’s a decent amount of damage, caused either by the storm or their own on-going neglect to maintain the place, but that still doesn’t make me any more happy about it. There have been enough visits in the past few weeks that I am about ready to go ‘You know what? This is enough. Give us two weeks unbothered, ok?’

But enough of my grumbliness - lets push that aside, shall we? Today I’ve drawn a bunny! Bunnies have a wonderful way of making me smile, even when a morning has not gone incredibly perfectly. I felt that after having my home invaded, the only real way to get a pick-up may just be to draw one of the furry little things.

Mission accomplished. I am actually feeling a decent amount better after drawing a bunny. It is a pity that such things can not solve all of life’s ills, isn’t it? Have a flu - a bunny will fix it. Have a hole in the wall - drawing a bunny will fix that too. Want to plan an assassination attempt - I suggest you call the very friendly folks over at ‘Brutal Bunnies for Hire’. They’ll take care of every single one of your assassination needs.

Ah well… the world doesn’t work exactly like that, but it would be nice if it did.

Painting: Some more of my bunny in progress.

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on May 13, 2009
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Kat Johnston Painting in Progress: Bunny bunny, cute as can be...

A little further along, I’m continuing with the progress shots of the other day. I’ve been doing a bit more work on my bunny here and there, and thought I’d better put up a couple more pictures! In this particular one, the bunny has become a bit more refined and I’ve done some rough sketching of the viney curly things for the background. When I do this, I do it in water-colour pencils, so that I can easily remove and rearrange the marks as I need to. I find this, for me, to be a better way of doing it than lead pencil, or pastel, which seem to be a bit harder to remove completely, especially from darker surfaces. Water-colour pencils in a light shade provide enough of a mark without any view to permanency that might occur with other mediums. A simple smudge of the finger or a tiny bit of water and a smudge, and the marks disappear. Perfect for sketching straight onto a canvas… and we all know how I like to sketch!

Kat Johnston Painting in Progress: cute cute bunnies, just as cute as can be.

And now a little further along again - I’ve used a fine brush to describe the curling vine-like growths behind the bunny here with a darkish shade. The painting is not yet done - the curling viney thingies are far too precise around the edges - very sharp. I’m thinking that I need some purple, some orange, some vibrancy… I still need to lift out pieces here and there, and, well, I dunno! I’m still working it out. In other words, stay tuned! There is more to come.

Update/Sketch: Bite me. Oh, and I’ve done some flickr updating too.

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on May 12, 2009
in Announcements, Bunnies, Cartoon, Humerous, Plain Paper, Sketch and Update
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Kat Johnston: There are some bunnies that are cute and cuddly - others just say 'bite me'.

Phew… done… at least for now. I’ve been working studiously away today, trying to get a good amount of the sketches here up onto my Flickr account so that it doesn’t go un-used. As a visual artist, it seems silly not to take advantage of Flickr for all that it’s worth. Although I haven’t gone through and tagged them all or sorted out proper descriptions, at least I’ve now got a good amount of pictures up with links back to the site.

I’ve also installed a new little filtery thingie, to hopefully stop so much spam getting through to be caught by Akismet. I hate to think of legitimate comments getting caught by the spam filter, so I do also go through them by hand just to make sure. With upwards of 100 comments within 24 hours getting into the spam queue though, it’s getting a mite ridiculous. Here’s to hoping that this reduces it by a little. If not, it’s time to move onto the next attempt at a solution.

Some of you may have noticed that the gallery has been taken down from here for a while - the tab is still up, but there is nothing in it in the way of, uhhh, pictures! Never fear - I’ve been looking into new gallery systems to improve upon the one I had up. The one I had up had no option for nested galleries and seemed to error when pictures were not utilizing a specific sizing system. Therefore, it was doubtless time for a change. When it is back up and running (hopefully soon), I will let you know!

Thanks for sticking around and seeing what I’ve got going on here, guys. Please never hesitate to let me know about any improvements you would like to see happen with the site, either in the comments of a post or by utilizing the contact form.

Sketch: I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.

Published
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on May 11, 2009
in 'The Hubby', Bunnies, Cartoon, Plain Paper and Sketch
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Kat Johnston sketch: What happens when you have this up on your screen? Answer: your husband, turning around to say 'is there something you want to tell me, Kat?'

I was sitting here sketching this little picture today, after which I scanned it into this lovely little computer (his name is Poe, by the way - the computer, not the bunny, that is). As I was scanning it in, I was checking out Facebook, to see if anything significant had happened within, ohh, the last 2 hours. Something had (sorta), as a friend posted up pictures of his daughter’s baptism.

I turned to my husband, quite casually, and said ‘My love… you know, I still find it weird to see some of the people I grew up with already with children… not so much that it isn’t something I didn’t see them doing, just that time passes quick - it seems like only yesterday my friend and I were sitting on a playground after watching a movie, and sipping at a couple of coffees…’

Suddenly my scanning finished, and up pops the picture - the one included in this post. My darling hubby raised his eyebrows, eyes narrowing as he hmmmed. ‘Is there something you want to tell me, darling?’

Why, I had not even thought of that! But what choice did I have? Lets face it, this was a golden opportunity. I started stroking my belly, cooing and crooning like a ninny. I could almost hear the grinding of gears, the indrawn breath as someone’s life comes to a close from all that was known before. That lasted about, ohhh, 30 seconds before I peek up with a twinkle in my eye. ‘Hell no. Actually, I was referring to Alice, yet again… that said, I can just see this as a greeting card…’

So, just in case any of you read any deeper than ‘bunny with a sign’, no, I’m not pregnant. Thank god. No offence to those who have children, want children and endorse the joys of possessing, uhh, children, but I am so not ready for that. I haven’t grown up myself yet!

Photo/Painting: Symbolism, anyone? Oh, and a few bunnies too!

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on May 8, 2009
in Bunnies, Canvas and painting
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Kat Johnston Photo: artistic suicide clean-up... I'm not sure whether it's symbolic, or just a desire for something different.

So today I got up and popped straight down to the studio… well… not straight down, but pretty close to it in any case. It was time for a clean-up, a clean-out, and a rearrange. I haven’t gotten to most of it, but I will… I’ve started. It counts.

One of the things I have resolved to do is pull up the outline. It’s been there for over a year now - it’s rather stubborn… but it will be moved. I think that now is about the time where I go ‘oh lord… note to self, don’t do this again. It looks cool, but it seems that masking tape gets ground further and further into the ground and the adhesive becomes more stubborn the longer it is there and the more it is walked over.’ Ah well… I’ll get there! The cards are already off of the wall (I had playing cards splashed across my wall) and at least the most obvious of artistic debri has been disposed of. Yay!

So now that you’ve seen that, time to post something a bit more ‘artistic’. I’ve started a little painting - this is the progress of yesterday and today (done in two little bouts). Now I will state this: this is still in progress… not done, nor really all that close to it… we’ll just have to see where this little gentleman leads.

Kat Johnston painting: bunny is progress... this is the first incarnation of it.

The first incarnation… I’m loving starting on a black base, and working from there. Building up a base of white to define the figure, you have no idea how much I want to stick with the black and white. I love it. It’s so vivid and raw. I could fix up a few bits from there and quite happily go ‘that’s it!’ But nope… I’ve decreed that this picture will be colour. So the first layers go down.

Kat Johnston painting: incarnation two... it still has a way to go, methinks, but the first layers are down, at least!

The first real layer of colour… so far, so good. I feel almost weird showing in-progress shots here - I know that the in-between stages are hardly the best indication of how it’s going to go… but hey, that’s what this blog is for: for showing the good beside the bad, the well polished beside the rough cut.

Phew! Ok, I think that is about it for now. I have a studio to get back to tidying, and more painting to do a little later. In the meantime, I think I may feast on some seedless green grapes. Wish me luck!

Sketch: A pair of rabbit ears.

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on March 19, 2009
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Kat Johnston Sketch: this rabbit hardly looks pleased... ah well. It serves him right for being a telly.

Lets get the quick stuff out of the way first: I don’t have a painting picture to show you today because I am in the middle of sketching out another canvas, and it is not ready to be seen yet. So instead, you’re getting another bunny. He doesn’t seem to be incredibly pleased at being stuffed into a television and used for his ears.

Now, onto the more important stuff! I went to the Powerhouse last night to check out a certain comedian I absolutely adore… Tim Minchin, in his show ‘Ready for This’. If you haven’t heard of him before… well… you can thank me later for introducing you! I love, love, love his work like you wouldn’t believe - its hilariously irreverent, occasionally thought-provoking, always brilliantly executed.

I must admit, I found the start (as in the entrance/lightshow thingie) to be a touch iffy (the sound was a little loud, and thus a bit distorted for me), but I think that has to do with it being opening night  - there’s always bound to be a couple of glitches to begin with. From there on in, however, it was perfect.

Things started with Prejudice, which the hubby and I were quite delighted with: James has a tinge of the ginge in his fringe and we’ve been humming the song for the past couple of weeks straight. Even with someone yelling out ‘bluey’ part way though - he just took it in stride so well. Another highlight was Storm, a nine minute long beat-poem, and another was brilliant song which mimics my own attitude towards certain types of critics, in response to his first scathing review… oh heck, if you’re in Brisbane, just get onto the website and book a ticket if you possibly can.

Ok… Minchin fan-girliness… over and out.

Sketch: Bunnies… are better than interviews.

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on March 11, 2009
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Kat Johnston Sketch: Bunnies... are better than interviews.

Why oh why am I so unnerved when it comes to interviews for positions that I really want? I start blabbering and babbling, and talking about things unrelated to the question because in reality, although I spent hours thinking over what I should or could say, my brain offers me a big fat blank instead.

I’m fine in most any situation, but when it comes to an interview… zilch. I turn into a bundle of nervous energy, scrabbling for anything even barely approaching a cohesive response to whatever question has been asked of me. Ah well. Cross your fingers for me - I hear on Friday whether I got the position or not.

Now, onto something slightly more cheery (still got those fingers crossed for me?) - I popped by to the Museum of Brisbane today to check out the Temperature 2 exhibition. I went to the first Temperature exhibition a few years back, and loved it to bits, so I guess it was time that I got out and saw its successor.

I have to say that for me, the highlight was Karl de Waal’s piece, ‘Quilt for Melanie’ - a quilt stitched together from discarded notes people had written. I could have spent all morning there reading each and every one of them. I must admit, I was sorely tempted to call some of the phone numbers which were on those scraps of paper, just to say ‘hey, by the way, did you know?’

I found most of the pieces intriguing in their own way, but that particular artwork was really the one to capture and hold my attention most. Isn’t it funny how a collection of the mundane can transform into something with a power all its own when it is taken into the hands of an artist? Each of those scraps, discarded by their owners once their use was fulfilled, stitched together with so many others entirely elevates them to something above and beyond their original form.

Little snippets, snatches of people’s lives, like a candid snapshot of a moment which was never intended to be witnessed by anyone other than them - one piece saying ‘don’t forget to bring the tampons’ on what appears to be a shopping list for a trip away, another piece seemingly filled with figures to work out some budget… I like it. Then again, I have rather a fascination for the discarded - what people throw away and toss aside, and then how it is reclaimed through art.

Ok… that’s all for today. Oh! The picture is another of my bunnies from the bunny sketch-book… he’s cute!