Painting Cats

Cats of all kinds are favourite animal subjects of many people. In previous lessons you have learnt how to draw cats perfectly.

Once you can draw the domestic cats, you should paint them in colour. It is easy to paint if you have a pet at home because you need to observe the cat very closely and study before starting to colour. If you do not have a pet cat you may have to look for a colour photograph to copy them.

When you can correctly paint a cat's face, you have solved the hardest part of the job.The illustration on Figure 1 shows a cat's face. First outline sketch shown on top and the second sketch bottom shows in colour. First a light colour is applied on the background.

Once the surface is dry you portray the details, the eyes, mouth, nose and ears. Be careful not to darken the background too much as the transparency of the paper would be lost.

Observe how small and delicate the nose with a gently curved mouth line. Most cats have white whiskers but you can depict these with fine black lines.

Figure 2 shows a close-up of cat's heads. The 3-dimensional feel is achieved by adding fur sparingly with dry brush strokes (a thin pointed No. 1 brush is used.)See the way the ears have been drawn, and shaded with colour. A cat's ear has a thick ridge round the base at the ear, as shown in the lower illustration.

Figure 3 shows an outline drawing of the basic shape, and a finished drawing. Notice the large eyes and ears. The long fur is best drawn with quick loose strokes. The back is shown with deep shades. The stripes are put in with a 0.5 pen.

All the dots are drawn with a 0.1 pen. Study the way I have depicted fur markings with fine lines, dots and dashes to give a balance drawing. Looking at the sketches given here practice many times to be a good cat artist.