How to Draw a Cat’s Head

Cats can be very hard to draw because of their complex markings and varied poses. Often a thin cat will look very fat when sitting (which is why famous author James Thurber once wrote, "cats sit fat and walk thin"). Sometimes when you try to add the body and legs, it just doesn't look quite right.

But we believe that drawing a cat can be pretty easy if you break it down into some simple steps. If you have a cat of your own, watch it when it's sleeping or sitting and try to think of the body position in shapes such as circles or ovals. Once you can take a hard-to-draw shape and think of it more simply, you're on your way to being a better artist.

Step 1
Just a circle.

Step 2

At this point our cat looks something like the way people describe aliens from another planet. Cats can have almond-shaped eyes or round eyes. Note the eyes are placed about in the middle of our circle.

Step 3

We've added a V for the nose. For the mouth we've placed a straight line under the nose, with two lines on each side. The ears are placed on each side of the head; they look a little like leaves.

Step 4

We've added some detail such as whiskers, and stripes. We also filled in the ears to make them look more realistic.    In this drawing we made the nose V into a triangle, and turned it slightly to the right, but you can keep yours straight if you want to.