I finally finished a huge map for my book and then my cat walked across it

I was in my kitchen last night, with the final ink layer drying on a 24 by 36 inch parchment sheet, and my cat Mittens jumped up and left three perfect, muddy paw prints right over the 'Sea of Shattered Spires'. I had to carefully lift the ink with a kneaded eraser for two hours, which blurred the coastlines. How do you guys protect big physical maps from pets or kids while they're drying?

3 comments

3 Comments

kai_west1mo agoTop Commenter

Ever think about just locking the cat in another room for a few hours? That laundry rack idea from jadeg81 is pretty smart though. I have to do something similar with cooling racks from the kitchen when I'm trying to keep dust off stuff. Two hours of fixing paw prints sounds like a special kind of pain. I'd be staring at those blurred coastlines every time I looked at the map after that.

thomas_roberts1mo ago

Tbh, @kai_west, my buddy dealt with this same nightmare last month. He tried everything, even hanging his drawings from the ceiling with fishing line, and his cat still somehow jumped up and left paw prints all over them.

jadeg811mo ago

Oh man, that's the worst. My cat treats any important paper like her personal welcome mat. I've started putting a laundry rack over anything that needs to dry, like a little protective cage. It looks ridiculous but it works.