Foyer to the Catio

I'm posting this so you can see how the cats come and go through the
fireplace clean out. The fireplace clean out door is used on the side
of the box and there are also two cat flap doors to keep bugs and
draft out.

A Catio Post for Lexi

I finished everything on the catio so far except for staining it. This
post is for you Lexi, hope you enjoy it!

Catio Under Construction

Here are Aaron and Jennifer-my indispensable Cat Coop construction crew. Aaron manned the circular saw and Jennifer provided logistics and quality control. By the end of Saturday we had the structure built and the hardware cloth stapled on. On Sunday I made the two doors on my own which involved conquering my fear of the circular saw. It really wasn't that bad. Yesterday I added sand over a bed of lava rock for drainage on the left side and today I added sod so the kitties will have some grass to chomp on and frolic in. Now I just have to build the 'hallway' to the fireplace cleanout, build perches and stain the whole thing.

The Cat Garden

This is the future site of the "Catio" (cat patio or cat garden). The cats will enter and exit through the fireplace cleanout. It is the little door at the right. I had to remove hydrangia, oleander and nandina bushes - all are poisonous to cats.

DUET: Illustration Friday

Two Book Pages

Here are two spreads from the book I'm currently illustrating. My dad and I wrote it together. It's about the geology of Yellowstone.

The Cat and the Cactus

Windowsill time, Zilla's favorite...

Under-dresser Monster

Under-dresser monster monches socks.

Group Drawing!

My dear friend Sarah started this and invited me to add on. It's an add-on drawing game. I've played before on real paper. You fold the paper to make one panel for each player. Each player draws their part without looking at the other parts until the end. Lots of fun! This one was created by Sarah, Andi, Andrea and Cyboticus. Thanks for playing everyone!

WARNING: Illustration Friday

Three-legged frogs, disappearing honeybees; are these warnings of a natural world that is falling apart? This is my first triangular tessellation and it was quite a challenge! It took some serious brain crunching to think through the rotations. I did it in watercolor pencil and black marker. After an afternoon spent doing simple tessellations with my 5th grade students, I decided to try something more challenging on my own. I made the original three frogs and copied and rotated them in PhotoShop. It's not perfect, there are some gaps where it doesn't quite match up, but I'm still pretty happy with it!