

There are many other elements to the cat, including the head, tail, and legs, that you will draw in the next few steps and these need plenty of space. The most important part of this first step is to make sure that your oval is in the center of your canvas. Ideally, this oval should be slightly angled down towards the right. Starting a drawing with construction shapes and lines is a great way to make sure your dimensions are perfect before you start adding details. For our cat drawing, we are going to begin with an elongated oval shape. Construction lines are incredibly helpful for any artist, whether you are an accomplished artist or a beginner. If you have followed any of our other animal drawing tutorials, you will know that we always start by using construction lines. You need to have an understanding of whats going on underneath it all. You cant see the muscles, but you’re going to need to learn them, because thats going to dictate how the features and fur look. Its good to study the muscles and how they sit on the bones, says illustrator Jade Merien. Cats are very flexible, but they still have limitations. One of the important things to study and understand is the skeleton, especially the spine. Cats bodies arent proportioned like a dogs, and their muscle groups are different from those of humans. Take a look at the anatomy of a cat before you start a drawing. Thats right, before you draw cats, you need to watch cats. But before you can jump in and sketch a furry kitty, you need to observe the real thing. Drawing cats can help you improve your artistic skills and give you fun pieces to add to your portfolio. From their graceful movements to their adorable faces and sassy attitudes, cats make for interesting subjects. Theres a reason cat videos dominate the internet: people like cats.

EASY CAT TO DRAW HOW TO
Using the same H pencils, block in the shadow on the tail and shade the fur with small lines and strokes to create the furry texture.įor more details on how to draw animal fur, check out The Cats Out Of The Bag Using H or 2H pencils, shade the lightest shadows around the face and neck. This particular cat has white fur around his neck with some beautiful spots and lines on its back and legs. Now we need to move on to the fur and shadows. You want to place this head oval at the front of the cats body oval, but you do not want the two to touch or overlap. The head oval should be much smaller than the body oval you drew in the last step, and it should be more steeply angled down to the right. In this second step, you are going to use another construction oval to represent the head of your drawing of a cat. Its not just about the individual shapes, its also about how those shapes connect to each other. Be sure to mark where the limbs and joints are, as well as the tail. When youve simplified the cats shape, you can get the gesture and positioning right without worrying about the complex details. So you need to build it back up in a way that your brain can understand. For a cat, youre dealing with the fluffy fur and the perspective. And to achieve that, you need to simplify all that chaos, says Merien.

Its about breaking a subject matter down and building it back up in a meaningful way. Start with the cats head, and then move on to the body, front legs, hind legs, and tail. But if you want to sketch a cartoon cat, look at art or illustrations to see how other artists have captured feline forms in a stylized way.Īfter youve observed the reference images, draw the major shapes of the cat. If you want to draw a realistic cat, use a photo for reference. This helps you observe and mimic the body shape of a cat, even when its foreshortened. You may have researched the anatomy of a cat, but youll still need to find some good reference photos.
