Tag Archive for 'Bunnies'

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Painting: Some more of my bunny in progress.

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.

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.

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!

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!

Sanu: Adventure Quest – Hunt on the High Seas.

Sanu stuff: the promotional signage for the Adventure Quest hunt. Yay!

Argh, I have been ill ill ill, and it hasn’t been pretty. Coughing and hacking, sniffling and sighing: I really don’t take well to having the flu. On the upside, I’m starting to feel somewhat human again, which is rather a blessing indeed.

In celebration of feeling human again, I finally sat down and mucked out another quest for Sanu. Those who know of my hunts, know that I like to give them a bit of a narrative to make the hunt more interesting. As has been the tradition, this story links into those that have gone before it – this time, it goes into a story about Chloe, the wife of Pip (the star of our first adventure) and mother to Hamish (star of the second). The hunt will run through to the 14th of April, with full instructions available at the store. So, without further ado, let me give you the first part of Adventure Quest: Hunt on the High Seas.

Little Juniper was the tinest bunny of the litter, and the youngest besides. Indeed, it was for this reason that she would spend her evenings sitting below the bush that carefully hid the entrance to the warren and sigh with wistful abandon. All the other bunnies were larger, stronger, and more athletic – she just didn’t feel special by comparison.

One evening, her grandfather spied the young doe by the doorway, shuffling across to sit down beside her. “Good eve, little Juniper.”

Juniper sighed. “Hello Grandpapa Pip.”

Grandpapa Pip was saddened by the folorn nature of his young kinsfellow. All knew of Juniper’s feelings, but even the encouragement of her esteemed father or all of her brothers and sisters seemed to do little to make her smile. Grandpapa Pip thought he might know just the thing. A story.

“You know, Junie, it doesn’t always pay to be the strongest, or the biggest. There was once another young bunny, very much like you who didn’t need any of those things to achieve great things.”

Juniper stirred from her thoughts, showing a curiousity none had seen out of her for weeks. “Who? Who, Grandpapa?”

Grandpapa smiled, patting his lap. Juniper scrambled up and settled herself within his warm, comforting embrace.

“Her name was Chloe – your Grandmama. It was soon after we had our firstborn, your Da Hamish.”

Juniper gasped in surprise. Her very own Grandmama? But how?

“The sun had just slipped below the horizon when a messenger flew into the entrance of the very warren we sit in now. With chest heaving, he delivered a message: the keys to the sacred jewels belonging to the rabbit king of the next dale over had been stolen: and by pirates, no less. He offered bountiful rewards for any who could return them.”

Juniper bounced in Grandpapa’s lap. “You mean she found them? She found the keys? What happened, Grandpapa?”

“Well, Chloe and I had just had your Da, but what the King of the Dale asks for, he must receive. The messenger came for us, for the King knew of my adventures before. I, however, could not leave: I’d broken my paw only a week before – it lay completely useless. Your Grandmama, however, could search for them.”

Grandpapa Pip paused for just a moment. Juniper’s eyes shone brightly as she waited expectantly for him to continue.

“Chloe packed herself a basket, with a few things she thought she needed, and she set out from the warren, leaving me home to tend to our newborn. She first set out for the cherry tree, within sight of our home.”

Chloe’s adventure had begun.