Cat-Sitting and Cat Drawing

Remember my friends' Czech wedding recently, where I nearly set fire to myself? Well, they are on honeymoon now in Italy and, bravely, have entrusted Maddy, their cat, into our safe keeping.

We have looked after Maddy before, so she knows us, and makes herself thoroughly at home. She keeps me company while I draw, which is great, but she particularly likes sitting on my warm graphics tablet and gets quite indignant when I throw her off.

As you can see, she is very cute, although into everything, so I do have to be careful in the studio. It's a good job I'm working on roughs and not my pastel artwork: I don't want any more cat disasters!

Fortunately Maddy is better behaved than Clyde, a lovely big black and white cat we looked after for several weeks once, while a friend moved house. I did this drawing of Clyde as a joke for my husband:

Guess what the problem with Clyde was?

I like making cards for my husband's birthday based on of our relationship with various cats. Smudge (below) was our own puss, sadly no longer with us. Despite the fluffy exterior, she had a fiery disposition, hence this design for a claw-proof suit for hubby:

This is Maddy sleeping on the chair beside my drawing desk yesterday, on a pink cushion, pulled carefully into the sunshine - spoilt or what?

We have to keep her in, like you do when you move house, but she keeps trying to escape. With all this hot weather, I've had the veluxes open and on Tuesday she jumped out onto the roof! I thought she was a gonner, as it's incredibly steeply pitched roof and very, very high, as you can see from a drawing I did out the window.

Luckily I managed to grab her, and got stabbed in the ear for my trouble!