My husband teases me about this. He really does. Every time I start on something like skins, or hair, or buildings, he’ll go, “Kat, you said that I should beat you if you ever start trying to make <insert item here>.” To which I resoundingly reply, “Shut up. Don’t tell me. I knowwwww!”
Skins are very much one of those things that I said I’d never do.
Luckily though, I often ignore what I’ve said earlier, and do it anyway. So here’s the new release!
There are four tones, to suit a range of avvies, starting with a nice pale shade.
There’s seven make-ups available in each tone – six can be picked up individually, but the seventh can only be obtained by purchasing the fatpack.
Each of the skins have four options to cover some of the basics – light brows for blonde and lighter hairs, dark brows for brunettes and darker, no cleavage for those that prefer a more natural look and cleavage for those who want a bit of lift. By having these options on the skin itself, you have the tattoo layer free for other things.
So yes. I’ve made skins again. Skins inspired by flowers and Spring-time and frolicking and fun. I’ve even released the shape in-store as well, so that you can get the exact look in the signs with the addition of some hair from Fri.day, eyes by Poetic Color, and outfit by Evie’s Closet.
Kat Johnston: Random sketching -is- good for you. I told you so. You didn’t believe me, but its true!
Aha! Many seem to look at me dubiously when I proclaim that I am better focused in classes due to my sketching, seeing it instead as a certain sign of my unattentiveness. However, as I have surely mentioned before (though I won’t dig out the post now, seeing as it is after midnight), I think that sketching actually helps me focus better. Its a zen-like thing – you sketch, letting your mind wander a little in one place, while the rest of it works at absorbing whatever it is you are meant to be absorbing on that particular day.
My hubby called shennanigans. He thought that it was just a lot of hokey, and that I was pulling his leg. Well, this morning he sent me a link to this little article which proclaims the same. Yay! Now I apparently have science to back up my wonderful theories. I’m glad someone got around to trying to prove it. I wonder if I inspired them?
So, in honor of this particular article, I dredged up one of the pages of one of my writing books, which I’ve dragged along to a lecture or two. This is a class… though I am entirely unable to recall which one. It was a while ago, after all. It features my gorgeous hung bunny, which I think hasn’t been properly introduced here in its original form until now. Yes, there’s the bunny in the moon (featuring the same bunny), but this was the way he was originally imagined, though not the first sketch of him, I assure you. My hung bunny rocks.
Alrighty ya’ll, I think I’d best get to bed before I stay up all night! Throw some congrats my way… I got an interview! Yayyyy!
Just a random flowery thingie inspired by the outfit I’m wearing.
Today’s post is a little later in the afternoon than I usually post… I blame it on the fact that it is a Sunday. Another picture drawn in green biro: its becoming a habit. Its actually because its the only pen on my actual computer desk at the moment, save for my wacom pen… which, while useful, doesn’t actually draw on paper all that well, being as it only works on the wacom tablet.
Anyhow, today’s picture is just a little something whipped up quickly to go up on here – it was inspired by the dress that I’m wearing today. I’m slumming it around the house in something I’d like to refer to as ‘bedsheet couture’. In other words, light, loose, comfortable and severely unflattering. That said, I, my husband and my brother-in-law are the only people who have to see me in it, therefore, I’m all for the comfort over style! I have the air conditioning on, a light breeze wafting through the room, a good book to get back to… life doesn’t really get much better than this.
Hope y’all are having a great weekend too, I have a book to get back to!
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.
I picked up my assignment from the uni a few days back. They have to be submitted in document wallets. I seem to have a preference for the green. Anyhow, long story short, I was then waiting for my dinner to be prepared that evening so had a few minutes to myself, with no other drawing material really available (other than the assignment itself… and the cover sheet… and all the rest), so I decided to graffiti the front of my folder instead. This is the oh-so-glamorous result. The food was quick! I call it ‘Dandelions on a Sea of Green’, or alternatively, ‘Assignment Folders are Good for Something’. Both work.
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