Black cat painting
Cat’s are usually hard to draw for young kids, but this project makes it easy! This tutorial shows how to make a sly cat who arched his back while standing on Jack-o-lantern step-by step.
This is a project for 6-8 years old but can be done by 5 year old kids as well.
Materials: paper, black oil pastel or black permanent marker, oil pastel, thick and thin brushes, acrylic paints (black,white and pinkish shade of purple), watercolor paints (yellow, orange, purple)
Project takes about 60 minutes (I recommend 2 sessions 30min each)
- place the paper horizontally
- start drawing outlines:
- draw a large horizontal oval – that’s a pumpkin
- to make a cat draw one large arch (I explain it as a “bridge” or a “narrow rainbow” for kids) for a cat’s back on top of the pumpkin
- add a smaller arch under the large “bridge: to make the outline of a cat’s tummy
- draw an oval for cat’s head and a question-shaped tail
- add triangle-shaped ears on top of the head. Draw two lemon-shaped eyes. To make a kind cat draw round-shaped eyes. The eyes should be of the same size and the space between them equals the length of one eye.
- now add space between cat’s paws. Draw a long flipped raindrop of the same height as the smaller arch to make a space between back paws. Repeat it for front paws. Round each paw where the cat touches the pumpkin.
- draw a face on a pumpkin (2 eyes, nose and a mouth) and color it with black oil pastel or permanent marker
- I always recommend to start painting from the lightest color to keep the colors bright and clean. So begin with yellow. Paint the pumpkin over its face with yellow and orange water colors. Use a wide brush for it. Paint the cat’s eyes with yellow.
- Paint the night sky with 3 parts. Start from the top: make a wide stripe of dark-purple color. After that add a middle stripe of pinkish purple. Then move down and paint a light purple part.
- Paint the cat with black carefully. Paint the ground with black (my students voted for green)))
- Add stars by making small white dots with a thin brush. At the end kids can add whatever they like: scary trees on sides, bats, moon. They can add whiskers and a nose if they like with oil crayons.
Here is how my 5-8 year olds did it: