How to draw a cat
A cat is a circle sitting on an oval, and everything that makes it a cat, the ears, the whiskers, the tail, gets added on top afterwards.
- 8 steps
- 10 minutes
- 4-10 Ages
- Easy
Draw it step by step
The new lines for each step are drawn in red. The grey dashed shapes are guides, sketch them lightly and rub them out at the end.
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1 Step 1: Guide shapes
Lightly sketch a big circle for the head and a wide oval under it for the body.
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2 Step 2: Head outline
Draw a big curved line around the top half of the head circle. Add a smooth curved line for the chin where it meets the body.
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3 Step 3: Ears
On top, draw two big triangles for ears. Inside each, add a smaller triangle.
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4 Step 4: Face and whiskers
Draw two small circles for eyes, a tiny triangle nose, and a short curved smile. Add three short lines for whiskers on each side.
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5 Step 5: Body and legs
Draw two long curved lines down from the head for the body sides. Add two short straight lines for the front legs, and a small curved hook on the right for the tail start.
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6 Step 6: Front paws
At the bottom, draw two wide U shapes for front paws. Add short lines for toes, and two straight lines up for the inner legs.
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7 Step 7: Back paws
On each side, draw a wide U shape for a back paw. Add small toe lines.
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8 Step 8: The tail
Draw two long curved lines to make a tail that curls up.
What you need
A pencil, paper and an eraser. Draw the guides softly so you can rub them out, and only press hard on the lines you want to keep.
Before you start
Sketch the two grey guide shapes lightly. The circle is the head, the oval is the body, and they overlap. Cats are drawn wide, not tall: keep the head big and the body round, because a narrow cat reads as a fox.
The part most people get wrong
The ears. They are triangles that sit ON the head, not beside it, and their base is much wider than people expect. Draw each ear so that its base sits fully on the top curve of the head circle, and give it room. Thin, spiky ears turn a cat into a bat.
The second thing is the eyes. Place them low, in the middle of the head, not near the top. High eyes make the face look like a human's; low eyes are what make it read as a cat.
Make it your own
- Make it a kitten. Bigger head, bigger eyes, shorter legs. Babies of every animal are drawn with the proportions deliberately wrong.
- Change the tail. Straight up means a happy cat. Curled around the paws means a calm one.
- Add stripes. Short curved lines along the back and the tail. Follow the curve of the body, never straight across.
- Give it a collar. A band across the neck with a small bell hanging from it.
Learn more about cats
The whiskers you drew are not decoration. They are exactly as wide as the cat's body, and the cat uses them to know whether a gap is wide enough to squeeze through. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear and can swivel them almost all the way round, which is why the ears sit high on the head where they can turn freely. And the reason a cat's face looks so calm is that its eyes sit low and wide, close to the muzzle, the same layout you just copied.
