Kat Johnston

Category: Lined Paper

  • Sketch: I have a boo-boo… and it isn’t fixed yet.

    Kat Johnston Sketch: I had to go to the doctor today… and you know what he said? Go get an MRI… then come back.

    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.

  • Sketch: Fluffy fluffy joy!

    Kat Johnston sketch: Yes, I know it’s rough… but he’s so cute and happy! And he has claws! Rawr!

    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!

  • Guest Spot: Someone else likes cthulhu too!

    A special guest spot, for our daring cthulhu!

    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!

  • Sketch: Show that you care, with Cthulhu.

    Kat Johnston Sketch: Show you care with the gift of cthulhu. Ok, so this would actually look kinda sucky if you actually made it, but the concept is sound!

    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!

  • Sketch: Good morning… a rant about paint.

    Kat Johnston: Oh my… what gorgeous girly pigtails you have!

    It feels too early in the morning, but I have a feeling that that has come from a combination of little sleep, and the fact that I’m about to get my house invaded by painters. Not the fun, creative, interesting types either… the types that just paint walls, and paint them all the same boring shade of pale cream. Not that pale cream is a bad thing, mind you, but I do tend to think that it is somewhat overused in every bloody rental property known to mankind. No, wait, I lie… that horrid, horrid shade of pale peach tends to stretch the boundaries of colour-love when it is plastered on every room in a place too. Same goes for pale blue – and I actually do regularly like pale blue!

    With that said though, I have to say, annoying though it may be to always be surrounded by these particular colours (though I have been lucky enough not to have to live in a ‘peach’ house yet), I would prefer them over some of the ungodly alternatives. I’m not sure who exactly advised some of the people out there about how to decorate, but really… a splash of colour should not have to equal DIY disaster. Unless you are really good at sponging, and know what you’re doing, for god’s sake, don’t sponge! Don’t decide to do an entire room of faux marble paint effect on the wall unless you’ve practiced beforehand! And seriously, just because someone showed you how to do it on TV does not mean that you are going to be able to replicate it perfectly in your own rental property.

    Now if you like experimenting in your home, go to town – your home is your home, and you have to live in it and love it… and possibly correct it if it all goes wrong. But I am still stunned at the amount of rental properties on the market that are, in my opinion, not fulfilling their potential (both in appearance, and the resulting long-term earnings) for lack of a few weekends of work and a few hundred bucks worth of paint. Cream all over might be boring, but at least it isn’t bright yellow with uneven white sponging and bright blue trims through the whole damn house.

    That is all. This somewhat-rant has been bought to you by the Kat Johnston Society Against Ugly Rental Properties. I just want the damn rooms painted: I need to get those boxes out of my studio so that I have room to move again!