Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

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Watercolor landscape, with Maine Coon.

Having been asked to provide personal notes to go with my personal list of places I knew needed to receive ARCs of Rosemary and Rue, and being the balanced, reasonable, under-achieving person that I am, I decided to slack off, and just fill in some pre-printed mad libs...and if you actually think that's true, you should really go take a look at my website. "Balanced, reasonable, and under-achieving" is about as accurate a description as "made of enchanted pumpkin pie, stapled together by magical weasels from the moon." (Actually, the latter description may be more accurate. I like pumpkin pie...) Viewing this as an excuse to acquire new art supplies (always an aspiration of mine), I promptly went to the art supply store, where I acquired...

* Two packs of watercolor greeting card blanks
* A new set of gorgeous watercolors in a cunning stack
* Two new watercolor brushes

...yes, I probably ought to seek help, but I really don't care. I am a content and comfortable addict, whose habits mostly just inconvenience my capacity to put anything away. I've spent a comfortable week composing, sketching, and painting watercolor "thank you for reading" notes to be sent off to my publisher. Since I really wanted to get them into the mail today, I spent about two hours last night doing a watercolor marathon as I finished off the detailing on the various cards.

Enter Alice.

Alice loves water. Watercolors are, surprisingly enough, largely based on what? On water. So Alice thinks that me doing watercolors is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that she really wants to help. Guess what doesn't actually help me do fine detail watercolors? Wow. Good guess.

Step one, set up watercolor station. Take brushes away from Alice.
Step two, start working. Discover that Alice is drinking the water I use to clean my brushes. Take water away from Alice.
Step three, clean brushes. Discover that Alice is now drinking the purple paint. Take paint away from Alice.
Step four, reassure self that yes, this is non-toxic paint.
Step five, discover that Alice is now licking the paint off one of the envelopes. Take envelope away from Alice.
Step six, put Alice off the couch.
Step seven, put Alice off the couch.
Step eight, give up and let her drink the damn paint water if she really wants to. At least she's not drinking the actual paint.
Step nine, discover that Alice is now a blue classic tabby and purple and orange and green.
Step ten, put everything away on a very high shelf, resolve never to work in oil paints.

My cards are done, and you can barely tell how much "help" I got. And since the paint is non-toxic and Lilly loves bathing Alice (whether she needs it or not), everything is basically back to normal. Except, perhaps, my nerves.
Tags: alice, art, being productive, busy busy busy
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  • 61 comments
Ah yes, the watercolor and cat dance. I know it well.

We also know the leather dye and cat mambo, the hot iron, silk, and cat tango, and the crewel wool and cat reel.
I know a lot of cat-and-art-supply dances, but this is the first time I've had to deal with a cat SO DAMN SET on consuming the actual materials. (The incident with Sarah Jane and the gingerbread house doesn't count, that was made of food.)

textileowl

8 years ago

seanan_mcguire

8 years ago

Kitties! Helping! :D
SO HELPFUL.

Helpful like BURNING.

droewyn

8 years ago

seanan_mcguire

8 years ago

alethea_eastrid

8 years ago

seanan_mcguire

8 years ago

alethea_eastrid

8 years ago

seanan_mcguire

8 years ago

*chortles*
*chortles mightily*
*thanks you kindly* :)
Kittens are always educational. Alice is teaching me that it's a good thing I prefer non-toxic paint.

bardling

8 years ago

seanan_mcguire

8 years ago

Our kittens have been similarly helpful to me in grading my current round of History of Science term papers. Eris (for whom I only have myself to blame, inasmuch as I named her that) particularly likes helping me alphabetize student papers, meaning she waits until I have done so and then runs full steam into the pile, head-first, distributing them evenly and randomly across whatever surface I happen to be grading on. Mina is more content to simply plop herself down directly on whatever document I'm examining, purring madly, which seems to be her was of endorsing a good paper that requires no more of my attention at that moment, therefore freeing up valuable time to pet her.
Clearly, your cats have been well-trained in the ways of being incredibly helpful to their owners. I wish Alice wasn't enrolled in their correspondence course.

scholarinexile

8 years ago

qnofhrt

8 years ago

scholarinexile

8 years ago

seanan_mcguire

8 years ago

dornbeast

8 years ago

scholarinexile

8 years ago

seanan_mcguire

8 years ago

scholarinexile

8 years ago

mariadkins

8 years ago

scholarinexile

8 years ago

mariadkins

8 years ago

scholarinexile

8 years ago

mariadkins

8 years ago

tezmilleroz

8 years ago

mariadkins

8 years ago

qnofhrt

8 years ago

mariadkins

8 years ago

dornbeast

8 years ago

seanan_mcguire

8 years ago

seanan_mcguire

8 years ago

Oh, how I love your kitty stories. :)
My cats are...special.

mariadkins

8 years ago

seanan_mcguire

8 years ago

mariadkins

8 years ago

If the pumpkin pie golem isn't already an element of existing folklore, it should be.

It is around my house. But my house is charitably called "odd"...
On advantage of oils, at least, is generally your work is upright and you have the paints actually in your hands at all times. Of course the possibility of drinking your medium or thinner is always there (and certainly knocking it over!) And of course easels with wet oil paintings are a recipe for disaster around a cat.

Probably good I don't have one, come to think of it, otherwise I'd have a very interesting colored carpet.
And a lot of vet bills, since oil paint is toxic.
Variation of said story - sending a scan of a contract to someone with included apologies that your bunny ate the lower right corner
I had to apologize to Jim for what Alice did to my copy of The Stepsister Scheme.
I'm having a rough day, so my eyes watering from laughing so hard at Alice being helpful was a welcome distraction.
Well, yay!
This seems to be very similar to Sierra's habit of "helpfully" pushing the keyboard buttons whenever I'm working on something, then insisting on holding the Capslock button down with her chin while I pet her behind the ears. Adorable, but occasionally bad for my keyboard. ^^;;;
Awwwwww, what a HELPFUL kitty!
Oh, PRETTY BABIES!!!!

Thank you!
*giggling helplessly*
My cats. They're special.
Clearly, Alice wants to grow up to be an artiste.
Right now, she's growing up to be a paperweight. Kitten in "stop" mode.
I think I've just changed my analysis of my own artistic facilities from "fuck, there's nowhere in the house that has the space/comfort to set up an easel" to "yay, I have access to cat-free studio space at school one or two out of three semesters."

On the other hand, one cannot paint Transformers porn in a public place, so it has its ups and its downs.
This is true. I used to get in trouble when I was trying to work from my life drawing studies, because apparently Starbucks is not for naked ladies.