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?

2 comments

2 Comments

kai_west4h 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.

jadeg818h 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.