Featuring the artwork, musings and sketches of Brisbane-based artist Kat Johnston. Updated daily with regular content.
So, this is a teensie tiny little note, about the size of a five cent coin (a bit larger than a penny, for our American counterparts). I know it isn’t much, but I felt like doing something unbearably cute with my ratties again, since I haven’t drawn a rat for a while!
I dedicate this teensie little note to my darling husband. I think that’s about it, actually… you might get a bonus picture later tonight, depending on how I’m feeling. Stay tuned!
So a person I follow on Twitter (@StraightEdge_, in case you were wondering) sent out a question: What to do to celebrate his 1000th tweet. I made a suggestion - do some ‘real life’ tweeting. In other words, do a drive-by to a few people’s places (hopefully your friends, who are also on twitter) and leave a hand-written 140 character or less message taped/pinned/stuck to their door to find later on. A step up from that, would be to leave little 140 character note in a loved one’s purse/wallet/etc, just letting them know just how much you love them… or something like that, anyway.
Thus, with that thought in mind, I thought I might take my own advice. With a humble tweet-count of 775 (a fair bit yet off 1000, not that a good weekend of typing wouldn’t bump up my total), I figure it wouldn’t hurt to give it a go anyway, don’t you think? So here we go… this post today, is the last tweet I did (as of this second, and it isn’t actually reproduced verbatim), with a little quickie illustration to go alongside it, just for fun! My twitter-stream seems to mostly consist of rather random nonsense, questions as to why I am so tired some of the time, and celebrations of whatever tasty tidbit of food I might have at hand.
So anyhow, yes… a tweet with a ‘traditional’ touch… still 140 characters or less, but written by my own hand instead of typed out on a computer. Writing by hand is just different from tippity-tapping on a keyboard, isn’t it? Well… I think it is anyway. Besides, I like my handwriting!
Here we go… a dino! What made me draw a dinosaur, you ask? Oh what a wonderful question, says I! Actually, I was just waiting for my lunch to go ‘ding!’ in the microwave, and something caught my eye. How better to pass the time than to do a little impromtu sculpting in the alfoil just sitting there all neat and tidy in its roll. So I did.
It wasn’t exactly the most accomplished alfoil sculpting - after all, how much can you do in a minute with a 30cm by 30cm square of alfoil? Actually, don’t answer that one… I’m sure there are some ultra-talented people out there who would consider that a most fantastic sort of challenge. Me though, I generally stick with the drawing, and the painting when I can poke my nose into my studio.
So once my little knobbley lump of alfoil had been so carefully completed and the microwave had finished proclaiming its ability to affectively heat pasta, the piece of alfoil was tossed away… but I couldn’t let it end there. That dinosaur was nice enough to form itself out of the alfoil, the least I could do was let it live on in a way that would do it a touch of justice. Thus, I drew him down, and that is the result that you see before you today.
Oh… and the pasta was super-tasty too!
So it has been an incredibly busy few weeks… it really has. There’s been a couple of emergency room visits (don’t worry, everyone is fine now), and a whole lot of other work for this and that. To top it off, today is my hubby’s and my wedding anniversary - three whole years of wedded bliss!
I thought I had best try and stop this post drought… I hadn’t posted in a little while, and despite the almost hectic nature of things at the moment, I thought that I really should start getting back into my blogging again. I have been sketching, though I must admit that it is drips and drabs rather than epic masterpieces.
Annnnyhow… I’m back, and I will be making an effort to post again regularly from this day onwards. At least until it gets too busy for me to look at a computer, let alone sit down and type.
So that is all for today - please tune in tomorrow for another episode of *dun Dun DUNNNN!!!* Kat’s Blog of Doooooooom. I think I might actually rename the site that for a few days… hmm. Photoshop, here I come.
So, there isn’t a picture with this post. Uhhh, sorry about that! You see, I’m down in Sydney at the moment, because a gorgeous friend of mine just happened to have booked her ticket here for the wrong day. Thus, I stole it (not literally, she did offer), and flew on down to attend another friend’s birthday party that I would have otherwise missed. Fortune smiles on me.
Just in case you were wondering, there is a reason why I haven’t posted in the past couple of days. I just started doing a little work as a Development Coordinator, so I was doing that on Tuesday and Wednesday. When I got home after those days, I just collapsed into bed and fell asleep, after grabbing whatever I could out of the fridge for a quick and probably unhealthy meal. It is a great office to work in, but still tiring!
So I did intend to throw up a picture yesterday. However that is when I got the call from my friend, to say, “Hey Kat! Uhhh… did you want to go to Sydney in four hours?” How can I say no to that? So for now, I am in Sydney, and there is a scanner close-by, though I’m not sure that it is plugged in… in either case, I’m not sure that I will be posting something of actual significance until Monday, which is when I get back to my wonderful hometown… where the drive from the airport to my final destination will thankfully not be over 2 hours long as it has been here in Sydney.
Anyhow… that’s all for now. Much fun, debauchery and awesomeness shall be had this weekend, and I will update you all when I can!
Today has been an especially long, long day. I won’t go into the gory details (not that they are all that gory), but suffice to say, when the day starts sometime around 2am with a hospital visit, it is sure to turn into a long day.
As it so happens, I had to go to the doc today as well - the 2am trip was not for me. I’ve had a little problem with my knee for the past few months, and it has been utterly annoying, because I have to avoid putting pressure on it, bumping it, or otherwise disturbing my poor silly knee. After going to the GP and getting an ultrasound done, the verdict was fairly simple: go see another doctor. Today I finally go in to see the orthopedic specialist, and after about 5 minutes, he goes, ‘Go downstairs and book an MRI, then make another appointment to see me.’
As happy as I am that I didn’t have to sit around all day, waiting for my appointment, it did seem fairly pointless to go in, have him prod my knee for a minute, and go, ‘eh, go get another scan.’ I mean, I understand if it is necessary, but I wish that someone else would have seen that it would have been necessary, so that I didn’t have to wait a month for this appointment, and then potentially have to wait another month (or longer, who knows…) for the next.
With all that aside, however, this is what I was drawing while I was waiting for my appointment. Perhaps I was overdoing it just a little with the personal pity party of one, but it just happened to make me smile.
Ok, so I know that this sketch is particularly rough - not that many of my other quickie sketches are particularly refined. I love him to bits though! Ok, so why did I draw him? Because he well and truly asked to be drawn.
You see, I have that funny thing where, when I am looking at something, it might turn out to be something entirely different from what I see. In this case, a little preview thumbnail for something was screaming out that it was this little boy (give or take… very roughly, mind you), when in fact, the full image was far more staid and boring and entirely not… well… this little boy!
Thus, I really had no choice. With his little head peeking out from that furry, fluffy suit, he cried out, “Draw me!” to which I promptly responded, “Nay, little Sir, for you are meant to be some silly, boring artifact, are you not?”
He shook his head with all the childish certainty that seemingly comes from being dressed (and joyfully so) in a dinosaur suit at the very grown-up age of around about five. “But you must draw me! I’m no silly clay figurine, with boring spiky hair and a dreary, dull pose. I’m me!”
I mused for a moment longer. I still wasn’t quite sure. “But, little one, don’t you wish to be what you are meant to be? In reality, you are not a little boy in a fluffy suit at all, but a blurry snatch of something else.”
He shrugged and laughed. “I am what I am,” said he, spreading his arms wide. “Does it matter if I am also something else? When you look at me, that something else is not what you see. All you see is me. Is this smaller truth any less relevant than the greater?” I was up against a very informed little imaginary boy indeed… and one with a wider vocabulary than I would have expected. And, I had to admit, he had a point.
“I’ll draw you,” said I. And so I did!
After posting the ’sorta paper-craft, but really dodgy’ post just before, a glorious girl I know decided to print it out and colour it in. Here is the result. If you are curious to see more from my dashing friend, check out her blog here! Her awesome colouring in is posted with permission, because I’m just awesome like that.
If you print out and colour little cthulhu here, or any of my pics, really, let me know! I might just post them to the site if you provide me with a copy. Oh dear… I think it’s almost getting to the point where Cthulhu needs its own category. Heaven forbid!
Sorrrrrry… I know. Enough cthulhu already. I can’t help it - they’re just toooo cute! Today’s installment on the cthulhu-train is a silly not-quite-papercraft style thingime that could be (if you wanted to put something totally lame on someone’s desk for them) cut out and constructed into something cute. The fact that it is drawn on notepaper and is rough as guts does kind of detract, but I’m actually thinking that it wouldn’t be a totally bad idea for me to make one of these for realsies. It wouldn’t really be that hard to do, and how cute would it be? Super cute. Seriously, show that you care with cthulhu. Do you think it would be a hit? Would you actually want to see a completed one, able to be cut out and constructed?
So anyhow, that is about it for today. Nothing especially exciting to disclose, or let you know about. I think that we’re able to actually start putting things back into the storage room, which will be a blessing, since all of those stupid boxes have been stored in my studio, barring its use for almost 6 weeks straight. Talk about frustrating, huh?
So for today, I shall leave it at that. Enjoy your day, everbody!
Dimi, I blame you for this. I just want you to know that. That aside, this cthulhu is super-cute!
That is all. I won’t bore you with a round-about post this time, since I’ve already done two of those so far today. Last cthulhu today, I promise. Oh, and the site will probably return to a semblance of normality sometime soon. In the meantime, it is a make-over for cthulhu madness.
Entries Feed
Find Kat on