Tag Archive for 'story'

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Sketch: Miss Liz Gets Her Way.

Published on April 3, 2009 in Plain Paper, Portraits and Sketch. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .
Kat Johnston Sketch: Miss Liz gets her way... one way or another. When she sets her mind on something, you had best not interfere.

I scrolled down the page just yesterday and noticed just how much Second Life stuff was taking up the screen. Well that just won’t do! I want to maintain a balance here, between that which is done digitally in a user-innovation based virtual world and that which is not. Thus, I present to you Miss Liz.

Miss Liz has always been a curious creature. Her parents always thought so, in any case. She never maintained a steady collection of friends – they would come and they would go just as quickly, once they figured out she truly was as ‘weeeiiirrrrd’ as the other children said. It bothered her not.

It was late in the month of June when the fateful event occurred: boarding school. ‘There’s nothing more proper than boarding school, to set a girl on the right path!’ her Aunt Hettie would proclaim, while shoving handfuls upon handfuls of glossy brochures with perpetually smiling girls on them under the nose of Liz’s startled mother. Miss Liz just turned her nose up and retired to her room with all the gracious elegance of a marmot with a burr in its tail.

‘Don’t humph and moan,’ mumbled her mother, as the last drab dress was wheedled into fitting the tiny suitcase with promises of sweets and warm iron pressings to come. ‘It doesn’t become a young lady to sulk so. Madam Perpetua will never allow it at the Very Distinguished Finishing School for Young Ladies of a Particular Age and Disposition.’ Liz cared not.

‘I shall not attend,’ asserted Liz, ‘I shall not attend any school which will not maintain a succinct title, in the very least. What am I to tell people? Hmmm? That I attend the VDFSYLPAD?’ She had to think over the abbreviation for the school’s title – it took her more than a few seconds to work out all the letters. ‘That’s ridiculous!’ Her voice had steadily risen to a screech, though was tempered by a plaintive moan as she collapsed back against prim covers of her overly pink bedspread. ‘What am I to do there, Mother? Hmm? Surrounded by dozens upon dozens of young ladies of a particular age and disposition? A disposition, I might add, that I believe I most certainly don’t share?’

With a hefty grunt, the lips of the suitcase pursed closed, the solid catches on the side glaring in protest as they were tested and probed – just to be certain, mind, that the disgruntled clothes-carrier would not pop open in the most embarressing of circumstances to spill its contents where all could see. ‘I will not go,’ grumbled Liz, with a resolute set to her pointed chin.

There was one whole week until the beginning of the school term. Mother had told her to enjoy being home until then. Miss Liz thought differently. She would not be plunged into an over-important school for miscreant girls who needed correcting. If there was anyone who needed correcting around here, it was that Aunt Hettie, who had convinced her mother of it in the first place! She had one whole week to set things right. Miss Liz would get her way, one way or another.

(a little note… Miss Liz most certainly does not get her way, at least in this instance. Apparently her mother can be quite firm, when the need arises. This is a picture of her at the swimming carnival. All good boarding schools for young ladies of a particular age and disposition must, after all, have at least one swimming carnival. They must also have a lacrosse team, and the school mistress must have a haughty English accent and an upturned nose. So there!

Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious that these are not overly polished pieces of writing… they’re not. They’re just ‘sitting down and throwing out some ideas about who the person is and so forth. Nothing edited!)

And again, I skip a day.

Published on December 8, 2008 in Plain Paper, Sketch and Sketch-Book. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The past few days have not been great post-wise, have they… it is a statement, more than a question, for I already know the answer were it posed as one. Trust me to do months of good solid posting, even when I wish not to, only to let it come to a hiccup and not let it recover straight away. No matter. I sit here typing in a rush as it closes on the midnight hour, in order that I might again return to a semblance of normality and renew my simple pledge of a creative product a day, no matter what stands in my way. While the first hiccup was nigh on unavoidable, I should still have had something up yesterday… complacency is not a friend.

And so, as per the day before last, I offer forth two pictures instead of the customary one, in order to atone for my lack of posting, lest you think me unrepentant.

I shall speak to you as I have drawn them – rough, unhewn gleanings sought though a half-glazed stream of thought as I’ve put my pen to paper. Indeed, no thought runs true when it comes to this way of thinking… I desired only something to show that I could continue as I have begun, and so these pictures have been produced.

A night blooming flower, plucked nigh the hour of the midnight toll.

First, a midnight bloom, plucked from the vine ere the toll of the dawn. It flowers only in the shade of darkness, its beauty resplendent only for those who look in the purity of the deep velvet gloom of the evening’s blanketing warmth. Its scent is heady and strong, though with a delicacy that laces the air with only the most pure and pungent of perfumes. Any glow of even the most dimmest lit torches would cause it to shrivel, its gift plunged into the light turning sour and sickly… even the petals simply withering to die before any eyes may take in the glory of what it was within darkness. Learn to view by the hazy light of the moon, but do not sully that which was not meant to see the breath of daylight’s kiss.

Born of the wind in the breath of the light, so too must the darkness have its counterpart.

As dark has its light, so too must night have its counterpart in its daytime companion. Thus, another blossom sets forth, held far apart from its night blooming cousin, reveling instead in the touch of the sun’s tender warming caress upon its petaled form. However, this bloom also carries its own saddening curse. Destined to burst forth at light’s first touch, the shadow destroys what once was light – lean in too close, try to sniff at the tendriling plumes, one miscalculation and all is surrendered. So it is as with light, so it is with the darkness – either destroyed by the other’s touch, yet radiant within their own elements, the night blooming flower and the bloom of the daytime shall forever more be destined to their solitary existences… one once a maiden, the other a man, a Goddess cursed union forever to be kept apart by the very means of their continuing existence. Yet they bloom. One in light, one in dark, forever hoping that the next bud set forth may meet their lover in the short life to come.

Ok… so that is enough rambling for one evening. That’s what the pictures asked of me, and thus I have told their tale neatly, if roughly, in the hour allotted to me before the bell of midnight strikes. Good eve.

Just a youth… on the precipice.

Published on November 14, 2008 in Lined Paper, Portraits and Sketch. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .
I dredged up this picture of a youth I had hidden in one of my books... cute, isn't he?

I was doing a little flick through one of my notebooks and came across this youth, sitting there and looking all cute… so he got scanned in for today! For y’all who haven’t been reading for a while, I find it hard to do profile portraits – they’re just not my thing so much. This one, however, I loved at the time and I still love now. He’s just so adorable and… well… I don’t know. Him, I guess! He doesn’t even have a name. Just a random, gangly youth just sitting on that precipice of adolescence, perhaps being faced with a few tough choices he’s never had to face before… but he’ll come out on top. He’s got a kind heart and a good head on his shoulders. I can almost see him as an adventurer, handed an over-sized sword and a quest to go save a princess of some sort… and lord knows it, but he has no idea where to start. He’d probably just start walking in one direction hoping to stumble onto a dragon to slay, while he tries to think of what the heck he’s going to do.

Anyhow… he’s a cutie and he will get the princess in the end. However, I know for a fact that the princess he is going to find is not going to be the common ‘wailing and whining and waiting to be rescued’ kind. I think he’s going to have his work cut out for him when he finds her! I can envisage her jumping out at him and catching him by surprise soon after she’s conked out the dragon in its nest (or lair?). She’ll have him on his back at knife-point, stammering in the dust in a second flat. And that’s just when the adventure begins…

Did Tink really just fancy Wendy?

Published on September 25, 2008 in Cartoon, Plain Paper, Portraits and Sketch. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Kat Johnston - What's chasing little Wendy here? I'm not entirely sure! She's a cute little character though, no?

Well… you never know. Its one theory, in any case. The picture above is Wendy, albeit not exactly of the Disney variety. She is, perhaps, a younger version… about six or seven years old… Peter has not lost his shadow yet, there is no ticking clock to signal the advance of one hungry and vengeful crocodile and little Tinkerbell has not yet tried to murder the competition.

Perhaps Wendy is sitting there on the seat by the window as Mr and Mrs Darling soothe the still crying Michael in his bassinet, cooing over him with concern as John glares from his bed just beside them, with all the jealous anger of a four year old who is not the one getting the attention. Wendy, however, doesn’t really mind. She’s allowed to have the curtains drawn open way past her bed-time.

She’s wrapped around in a warm down comforter, her eyes wide and bright as the cries of her brother are drowned out by the wonder of seeing a London street bathed in the milky glow of the moon reflected off brand new snow not yet disturbed by the carriages and horses that will undoubtedly trundle by before she wakes in the morn. By that time, the pristine snow will already have been churned into a muddy slush.

Wendy would look towards the sky filled with tiny pinpricks of beautiful white light, dotted against a velvet sea of deep, dark blue and dream… seeing just one of those stars seemingly tumble out of the sky before righting itself and flickering out of sight. A little white moth, who’s roamed too far from the glow of the august street-lanterns? A speck of snow, trying to escape from a wayward cloud not present in a cloudless sky? Or perhaps… just perhaps… her first little hint of what is to come, as miss Wendy spies her rival and perhaps future lady love for the first time, before little Tink goes darting out of sight.

The Unwise Owl.

Published on September 17, 2008 in Owls, Plain Paper and Sketch. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Kat Johnston Art - This is the owl who sits all alone, longing for the fruit of the carambola tree.

A little brown owl sat upon a tiny branch, growing from a bough on the old oak tree. He was restless, shuffling back and forth before looking wistfully to the sky. ‘I want more,’ he said, to no-one but himself, ‘I want to be like the stars, all twinkley in the night.’

A little grey field-mouse had overheard the owl, and clapped his paws together in quiet delight. If the owl left the forest, he could run around at night without fear of being swooped upon. He scurried up the tree as silently as he could and dangled very close to the brown owl’s ear.

‘Ooooohh,’ he said, all spooky and mysterious, ‘Ooooohh, I am a star. I have heard your plea.’ Little brown owl hooted in surprise and looked all around, but field-mouse was very well hidden. ‘Search for a fruit shaped like me,’ whispered the cunning pretend-star. ‘If you eat of the fruit, you will become all twinkley in the night.’

Little brown owl had heard of the starfruit, but had never imagined that it could turn a little brown owl into a twinkley star. He flapped his wings twice and leaped from his branch, not certain where to start looking for this incredible fruit. He was ready to do whatever it took if it could mean that he would be other than a little brown owl.

He flew for five miles as darkness descended, lazily looping as he pondered where to go. He saw a twinkling not too far away, of a township lit up in the eve. ‘Aha!’ hooted the owl ‘There are lights on the earth, as there are in the sky. That must be where the starfruit gather’. Little brown owl had never seen a town before.

He quickly arrived at the edge of the township, but although there were twinkling lights, they didn’t look like stars at all. ‘They must be further inside’ he thought, as he saw a rat bound past.

He plunged, pinning the rat to the ground. ‘Where is the starfruit,’ he cried. The rat looked up in surprise. She was expecting to be eaten, not questioned. ‘There is fruit at the greengrocer,’ she replied cautiously, ‘Its just down the street. They are open late tonight,’ she added hopefully.

Little brown owl glared at the rat, taking to the air once more, only to alight moments later on a lamp-post just outside the greengrocer store. He peered at the stalls that lined along the street, seeing apples and rockmelons, but not one single fruit that was shaped like a star. He would have to go inside.

He hopped into the store to the awe of the people. He fluffed himself up just as proud as can be when he spotted a fruit shaped just like a star. Under it was a brightly painted tag saying ‘carambola’, but he didn’t care what that said. It was a starfruit. It would make him twinkley like a star in the night.

Little brown owl leaped up onto the display and dipped his head to pierce the green skin of the fruit with his sharp beak, crowing a triumphant ‘hoo-hoo!’ The greengrocer was not as impressed as he. The greengrocer sneaked up behind the greedy owl and put a basket over him, capturing him neatly. Little brown owl didn’t care, he was going to twinkle and shine like the stars in the sky.

As he was transferred to a cage, his shoulders drooped. He was not twinkling or shining at all, not even a little. He looked wistfully at the stars for a moment, as the doors of the van slid shut behind him, cutting them off from sight. Little brown owl no longer wanted to be a star. He longed for his tiny branch, growing from a bough on the old oak tree.

For why this quick story was written, there’s a bit of an explanation after the cut.

Continue reading ‘The Unwise Owl.’