Guinea Pig Studies

I am kind of treating my time guinea pig-sitting as a mini artist retreat.
The guinea pigs (and the fish) don't require much, I just make them a little salad in the morning.
And I am almost done with all the planning work (digitally) for the remaining 4 paintings in my in-progress new Topiary Cat series.

It was very nice of my friends to let me stay here, they know I need a change of scenery.
It's also nice that they are so close to home- 15 mins on the train/bus, or a half hour walk.  I have been stopping home every day.

They adopted a cat 2 months ago and it turned out the cat had FIP which is fatal, and the cat had to be put down the same day they left for vacation.  I was originally going to watch the cat too, then they were going to take the cat with them.  And then he got very sick. So they have had a very hard time with that, and I wanted to do something nice, give them something to make them happy. 

I used some sketching pencils, Jerry's jumbo sketch pencils, on grey paper.  

Each of these studies took around 20 minutes.

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The cat story is sad.
I know my friends because our daughters used to dance together.
Sharon and Matthew's daughter.
They are absolutely wonderful people, just.... very kind, good people.
The guinea pigs are technically their daughter's but in reality all the pets are Matthew's.

He REALLY loves those guinea pigs.

There is cat stuff everywhere here.  They went all-out, there is even a custom-made food mat with the cat's name.  I feel awful for them. Their daughter immediately fell in love with the cat at the shelter.  Sharon thinks the cat knew he was sick and chose them because he knew they would give him the best short life he could possibly have.  I agree with her.  It's still hard.