Kat Johnston

Tag: drawing

  • Sketch: If Pigs Had Wings.

    Kat Johnston Sketch: It's a cute little piggley-wink! And it has wings!

    Whenever you’ve taken a break from blogging, it really does feel as if you should apologize for being gone so long. I would, but I’ve been so sick and busy of late, that it was kinda unavoidable. I have had colds, flus, tonsillitis and lord only knows how many instances of ailments over the past few months. Not to mention a few little computer troubles… How annoying!

    It is time to get back into the swing of things, don’t you think?

    So here is today’s sketch. It’s a pig! It has wings! It is cute as can be, and was sketched along with a few other pigs on a folded over piece of paper.

    His name is Fauntleroy Montgomery the Third, and he loves peppers. He is also the only pig he knows that happens to have little wings sprouting from his back!

  • Sketch: Time for another owl.

    Kat Johnston: Little Chester is an excited little owl!

    Surprisingly enough, ‘sketches for owls’ is one of the most popular search-terms people use to lead them to this site. Considering that I have not done a sketch of an owl in quite a while for here, something a little more current in the owl category certainly could not go astray, right?

    Thus, I bring you Chester. Chester is an owl. He is also very excited.

    I’m honestly not all that sure about what it is that Chester appears so excited about, but I am sure it is something good!

    Oh wait… I think I know what it is after all… you see, I’ve decided that after having the site as it is for a year, it is time that I started giving it the attention it deserves and do a redesign of it. So, uh, yeah… keep tuned! Sorry this is just a short post today, but I have to get to work. Phew.

  • Artist Feature and Sketch: A tragic clown.

    Kat Johnston Sketch: A proud and tragic clown, looking down with an imperial air.

    The last couple of images I’ve uploaded have been rather… um… sketchy! So time for something a touch more precise.

    I tend to go through different moods – fairly unscribbled here, lots of scribbles there… since I don’t tend to ‘pre-sketch’ for these sketches (ie, do something erasable underneath first before going over the top in pen) scribbles sort of lend themselves to the medium. Even in slightly more ‘precise’ work I tend to work over an area with short, sharp strokes rather than long and flowing ones.

    I know this isn’t a way I always used to sketch. I’m fairly sure that I used to favour more long, sweeping strokes – one stroke to create a line from start to finish. Perhaps it is the tendency of biros to cut out part way through whatever you’re doing (something which is tragically a major annoyance with cheaper brands or pens you have used faithfully for the extent of their life) or the gradual build-up of a line achieved when using a short-stroke style that has caused me to prefer one style of sketching over the other.

    Whatever the reason… It works for me!

    Now for something I’m going to try and do more often: linking to other brilliant artists whose work I admire and adore.

    Artist Feature: Radio Signals.

    I had the pleasure of first ‘meeting’ Miss Radio Signals when the sim my mainstore was located on in Second Life was no longer suitable. One of my customers told her about me, we met up, had a chat, worked out a few things and BAM! Just like that I had found a new home. I’ve never looked back!

    Her store, called Scribble, presents a blend of beautiful products, but beyond her work in Second Life, she is also a talented pop-surreal artist with a great knack for the digital medium. With delicate tones and a style which is all at once both precise and seemingly organic, it is simply stunning. Yeah… I’m a total fan-girl!

    Here’s a couple of my favourites, which can be found for purchase at her Etsy store:Actaeon and Eulogy, though of course more can be found at her website, including wonderful progress shots and a look into the process behind the artworks.

  • Sketch: Little mister dragon.

    Kat Johnston Drawing: A little dragon sketch – isn’t he cute? Ok… so he might be just a scribble-dragon… but I think he is cute!

    I was doing a little scribbling last night in a sketch book (oh my god! I’m sketching in an actual sketch book!), and this little fella popped out. I was sketching dragons… you know… just coz? Ok, I might have had an ulterior motive. I need to make a birthday card later today because I am too lazy to go out and buy one for someone. I mean, it is really kinda rude to show up to a birthday party without even a card, or so I am told! It won’t be overly fancy, but it should do the job.

    So, later on, I think I’ll get to sketching the actual card. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do for it – it has to have at least a dragon. Possibly a dragon rolling a D20, swilling a good glass of red while being attacked by a ninja reading a fantasy novel. Well, perhaps not… but it would be a good way to combine a heap of things she loves into one awesome image!

    My apologies… my writing may not be fantastic today. I am writing this blog post while listening to the commentary for ‘Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog‘, which admittedly is really as good as the movie itself. So I’m a little distracted. But don’t worry – I’m sure that my posting will be up to its usual fantastic (ha!) standard again soon. When I am not listening to musicals and grooving along instead of paying attention as I should.

  • Sketch: Rawr the Dragon.

    Kat Johnston Sketch: Rawr the dragon is full of dragony, rawry goodness! Is rawry even a word? It should be!

    Going to Sydney is a great idea, when you have a party on down there to attend. What isn’t a great idea? Doing a drive down and back (about 12 hours each way) in the space of a weekend! It was well worth the trip, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think I’m going to be wanting to do that trek again so quickly any time soon. I was just the passenger, and I can admit quite freely that I am rather exhausted! I don’t know how the drivers are up and functioning properly today.

    There were some highlights of the drive though… a fox who decided to cross our path (though thankfully not to get run over), a stop in Scone to purchase (can you guess?) a scone… and to top it all off, at the close of what turned out to be around 13 or 14 hours of driving through excessive roadworks, small towns, and other delaying things, a traffic controller who waddled over to our car less than 30km from home to tell us that we had to stop for a while because they were sorting out some line-work on the highway. Believe it or not, that made us quite hysterical with laughter, so close as we were to our goal of bed and much needed sleep.

    Was it worth it to go and see all our Sydney-based friends for a night of fun and frivolity though? You better believe it.

    I very much wish there was a way to smush all of our Brisbane-based friends and Sydney-based friends into one, big, very-easy-to-access (geographically) group. Sadly, the distance is really rather a pain. Don’t you wish that teleporting and making portals to other major cities was as easy as casting a quick spell or pressing a little button? I know I do. The airline companies might not be especially happy about it, but I’m all for it. Viva-la-teleportation!

    Oh, and a note about the actual picture for today. It is made in honor of a friend of mine who is hitting the big three-oh on the weekend. She likes dragons!