Kat Johnston

Tag: announcement

  • Sketch/Announcement: Inspired by Jenny, but definately not Jenny.

    Kat Johnston Sketch: Inspired (somewhat) by my Jenny pictures. Look through the categories if you don’t get what I mean!

    A quick and early sketch today! I have to go in for my ultrasound later, and have various other annoying things to get done until then, so I thought I’d get this out of the way early if I could.

    The picture today is somewhat inspired by Jenny. If you have no idea who or what Jenny is, check out the category links – there’s one called Jenny there. I love the original Jenny to bits, and to be honest, I’m not entirely sure if I could ever properly turn her into a ‘regular’ person. It just doesn’t really work like that.

    On another note, I’d like to point out something incredible and fantastic! I’ve now been writing on this blog for over a year. I didn’t actually think about it until last night, but when I did… oh my! I had to race back to the computer to click on the archives for May 2008 to see when the exact date actually was. I actually have an odd sense of accomplishment over all this. There’s 270 posts (or will be, when this one is included), which means that I post approximately two days outta three, or there-abouts… that’s not too bad if you ask me!

    For something started on little more than a whim, then continued on under the banner of ‘study’, I think the site has gone incredibly well so far. Yes, there are still some things I need to do – finish updating the gallery, finally get around to sorting out the banner for good (the composition as it is currently isn’t perfectly ideal, but with a bit of work, could be much much better), and perhaps a few other things… but it is good. It has certainly been fulfilling its primary purpose: keeping me motivated to do what I know I love… sketching. If people see it, so much more the bonus.

    So, celebrations all around, don’t you think? Milestone accomplished.

  • 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.

  • Some survey results and a random sketch.

    Kat Johnston Sketch – The name Jashua just popped out for this little guy… and I don’t even like the name Jashua. Go figure.

    Ok, so to get the sketch for today out of the way: his name is Jashua and I don’t even know why. I don’t even like the name Jashua. Go figure. I still can’t believe that I name some (read ‘most’) of my sketches… he’s just a random sketch that I know that I’m not going to come back to, but he’s named anyway. Most of them at least get a quick back-story or character profile in my head too. Generally not all that extensive, mind you, but something at least. Lets skip over that for today and move onto some more interesting stuff though, yes?

    Now, onto some survey results! Overall, I got 23 responses all up. Below are the words that were used, with the frequency of the words after them in brackets.

    ‘Creative’ (8), ‘Artistic’ (3), Imaginative (3), ‘Talented’ (2), Inventive (1), ‘Good Drawer’ (1), ‘Curious’ (1), ‘Quirky’ (1), ‘Eclectic’ (1), ‘Colourful’ (2), ‘Vibrant’ (1), ‘Monochrome’ (1), ‘Fun’ (1), ‘Funny’ (1), ‘Humor’ (1), ‘Charming’ (1), Intelligent (1), Clever (1), Smart (1), ‘Deep’ (1), ‘Depth’ (1), ‘Thoughtful’ (1), ‘Deeply Emotive’ (1), ‘Sensitive’ (1), ‘Caring’ (2), ‘Sweet’ (1), ‘Kind’ (1), ‘Loving’ (1), ‘Warm’ (1), ‘Affectionate’ (1), ‘Clean’ (1), ‘Alive’ (1), ‘Cuteness’ (1), ‘Brave’ (1), ‘Easygoing’ (1), ‘Candid’ (1), ‘Individualistic’ (1), ‘Intriguing’ (1), ‘Pondering’ (1), ‘Distinct’ (1), ‘Inimitable’ (1), ‘Open’ (1), ‘Open Source’ (1), ‘Minx’ (1), ‘Simple’ (1), ‘Quite Interesting’ (1), ‘Organised’ (1), ‘Systematic’ (1), ‘Driven’ (1), ‘Cat’ (1), ‘Funky’ (1), ‘Jazz’ (1), ‘Musical’ (1), ‘Feminine’ (1), ‘Reflective’ (1).

    Phew! Quite a list, isn’t it? I could probably have tried to roll some of those words into one another (eg, humor and funny could be close enough to be considered one and the same), but I’ve decided to keep them separate to give a more accurate set of words to you to have a look at. I’m glad to see ‘Creative’ topping the list (it is one of the things that I do hope that I show through this site), but was a little surprised by a couple of the others. Jump into comments and tell me what you think!

  • Announcement and Update: one month has passed me by, and I’m drawing in a real sketchbook.

    Kat Johnston art - looking at a blank page is hard. Its so full of potential, and -you- have the potential to screw it up. But as the saying goes: nothing ventured, nothing gained.

    A quick note on the picture above, before it goes into the hugely long post of today. I’ve entitled it ‘Dandelion Dreaming’ and it currently occupies a place in one of my ‘real’ sketchbooks. Please read on – the site has been live for a month today, so it is a bit of a long post to kinda reflect on this fact.

    Atelodemiourgiopapyrophobia – the fear of imperfect creative activity on paper. A word first coined in this post. It may not be a ‘true’ phobia, but it is certainly something a lot of us must face at one point or another. Ever sat down to write a hand-written letter and been scared to start because you just know that you are going to misspell something? Atelodemiourgiopapyrophobia.

    Whilst the above example is certainly pertinent, the more common one for me has to do with sketching in a nicely bound, beautifully presented sketchbook – not the spiral-bound cheapies, or the lecture notepads… with those, you can always just turn another page, or even tear it out. There is something special, something exquisite about a sketchbook that is just waiting to be a showcase of the things that flitter around on the edge of your consciousness, works in their own right waiting to be committed to a journal, which, while rough and underdeveloped at times, you would be proud to hand to someone else and go ‘this is mine’.

    Having a ‘digital sketchbook’ such as this blog may go a way towards battling this, but I am able to, as with the ‘cheapie’ sketchbooks, pick and choose what I display here. I can toss away the incredibly bad bits and pieces and just throw up the ‘this is passable’ stuff. It just isn’t the same.

    Thus, I’ve started trying to draw in ‘actual’ sketchbooks now and then. It is something that I have seemingly avoided for quite a while – it does actually scare me. I see pictures of people’s sketchbooks and I am in awe of the things they produce, page after page of perfection – or at least, that is how I see it. How can I live up to that? Sketchbooks such as these are creative works in their own rights, no matter how much people may argue to the contrary. Whilst they may not have the centre-stage such as a well-worked painting under spotlights may have, I find them to be just as interesting, just as relevant, just as fascinating – perhaps even moreso at times because it is so raw and often unfiltered.

    Anyhow, this roundabout post is kinda just trying to point out that I am trying to do something about this silly fear I have of ruining a perfectly good sketchbook. ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’ is the old saying, and I’m coming to realize that it is a saying I should pay more heed to.

    On May the 16th, 2008 I started a little blog on the spur of the moment, thinking ‘if not now, then when?’. It was updated only semi-regularly, though the goal was for a once-a-day sketch as it is now. It was frequented only once in a while by a few friends, some family and so on. I never did anything to promote it, beyond telling a person or two.

    Then I had a chance to do my major assignment for my coursework on a subject of my choice. This website became that project. The saying ‘It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt’ did occur to me, but I had been doing that forever – if no-one ever sees your work, then they can’t point out that its not great, right? But nor are you going to get anywhere or move forward. Whilst I don’t generally go in for the whole ‘self help’ mantras, this one has always rung true for me: ‘If you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always got’ (Tony Robbins, in case you were curious… I had to look it up). So I did it anyway. I could have gone with a safe project, and written an essay, but instead I decided it was time to promote me.

    On the 29th of August, after weeks of learning css on the fly, modifying wordpress themes and making a place to call my virtual own, KatJohnston.com went live. As of the moment I write this, I have had 1,293 visits to this site, ranging from people I know, to people that I certainly hadn’t met before this project went underway. I’ve been putting myself out there on social networking applications: facebook, twitter, delicious and more, actually trying to get people to see what I do, who I am, even if it is just the rough sketches and flittery thoughts rather than the refined works. I’ve been consistently throwing up at least one sketch a day, even when that sketch is barely more than a few flicks of a pen to say ‘there, I’ve done a sketch, now I need some sleep’.

    Before I started out on doing this, I wasn’t drawing consistently. I wasn’t doing something day by day, every day and I certainly didn’t feel as if I wanted to be in my studio every waking moment. Right now, I cannot wait until my time at university is over. I am still working strong on assignments with another month ahead of me, but I’m almost counting down the days until I am done and will have time to paint and draw for more than a minute here, or an hour there. Believe it or not, doing this has actually made me enthusiastic about something that has fallen to the wayside for far too long: creating.

    Perhaps it is the fact that people are actually seeing my work, or the fact that I have people now who I know check this site day by day to see what I have drawn. Perhaps it is just that I can scroll through these pages myself and go ‘you know, I actually like what I do’ in a way that can’t really be done with scraps of paper scattered from one end of the house to the other in a dozen different books and places. It isn’t life-changing stuff, its just random thoughts, random sketches and things that make me smile – but it has made a real difference. I’m showing my work to people, risking ‘failure’, rejection and more by throwing the good up with the not-so-perfect, but I’m doing it anyway. I’m also starting to sketch in sketchbooks now. Yup, I am a little scared – I think I always will be when it comes to this. But I’m doing it anyway.

    Something has been ventured: everything has been gained.

  • Survey: What do you think of me?

    Update: 21 responses so far! We’re over the 20-person mark, can we get it to 25? Please get as many people involved as you can, I’ll update the number as we go. Regular entries are still being posted just under this one. This survey reminder will just remain at the top of the page until October 3rd – extending it out a touch longer for responses from Articulate! Thanks QUT!

    This survey helps with my major assignment. At the very least, all I need is three words you can think of to describe me, based on your impressions of my web-presence online (perhaps reading through some of my posts or checking out the ‘Find me on’ list to the right will help, if you can’t think of anything straight away), though I would also love it if you would care to elaborate.

    More info about the survey (if you want it) after the cut.
    (more…)