Art Lesson for Kids & Beginners: Drawing and Watercolor Painting a Cat for the 100th Day of School

1. Introduction and Supplies You Will Need: Hi, friends. How are you? I hope you're having a great day today. I'm excited about sharing this project with you. This is a drawing and watercolor painting project that I designed, especially for kids. Students do not need to have any drawing or painting experience at all to be successful with this project. I will guide students step by step through all the steps that they need to take. Today we are going to be creating this cute little kitty cat that is created from the number 100. I hope that you have a lot of fun with this project. Let's get started. Let's talk about the supplies and the materials that you will need for this project. The first thing that you'll need is a sheet of watercolor paper. You will need a set of watercolor paints and a paintbrush. You will also need a cup or a bowl with clean water. You will need a black oil pastel or a black crayon and a paper towel. So go ahead and gather all of those supplies and materials, and I'll see you back here in the next video. 2. Step 1: Draw a Cat Design: In this step, we are going to draw our kitty cat design. So let's get started. Go ahead and pick up your black oil pastel or crayon. And what we're going to do is we're going to go pretty close to the top of our sheet of paper, but not all the way to the top, right? And we're going to start about right here and we're going to make a straight line coming down. That is the number one. Now, what we're going to do is we're going to make two zeros, one here and one here. So we have a zero here. And a zero here. Notice how large my numbers are. Alright. So here we have the number 100. Let's turn it into a kitty cat. So what we're going to do is start here, and then we're going to come around with a curve line, and we're going to end up about right here. Let me show you what I mean. We're going to make a curve line going up and then a curve line ending about right here. This is going to be the top of our kitty cat's head. Now let's make the bottom part of our kitty cat's head. So we're going to come about right here and we're going to end up about right here, and we're going to use a curve line like this. Now let's add some details to our kitty cat. Let's start up at the top and make some pointed ears. So those are going to be some triangles. The very top of our sheet of paper. Now what we're going to do is we're going to add some circles for the eyes. And remember, whenever you use black oil pastels, they smear very, very easily, so you have to be careful not to brush your piece of paper those oil pastels can smear. Now let's make a nose. I'm going to make a triangle nose, and then a little mouth. And then some whiskers. I like to just make two or three whiskers. If you would like to make more than that, you can. Just going to make two or three. Now what we're going to do is move down here to underneath the cat's face, and let's make two curve lines. One, two, coming out from the side bottom. Now we're going to make some legs and feet. So two lines here and two lines here. And then let's make some toes. I'm just going to make three toes and don't forget the nails. Cats have those sharp nails. Now let's close up that shape, that body shape right here with a straight line. There we go. Now, remember, the back, feet and legs are behind the cat, so we're not able to see those. Now what we need to do is we need to make something out of this number one. So what we're going to do is make a tail. So we're going to connect this number one to the body of our cat. So let's do that with a curve line like that. Now at the top of this number one, what we can do is make a curve like this. And then we can double that up with another line coming along, overlapping if you want to. There we go. Alright, now let's make some grass that our little kitty cat can be sitting on. And then if you'd like to make anything down here at the bottom, maybe some flowers. I think I will make a little flour. This is the type of flower that I like to make. It's like a daisy. A little leaf. Maybe I'll make one over here as well. A little leaf. If there's something else that you'd like to make down here, maybe some grass. Maybe some little spiky grass or more flowers. You can do whatever you'd like. You can even make some little lines like this to represent the grass. Now, go ahead and take a look at your drawing. If there's anything else that you'd like to add, you can go ahead and do that right now. For example, if you'd like to add anything in the sky like some clouds or some raindrops or something like that, you can go ahead and do that. I'm happy with the way that my drawing looks, so I'm going to stop drawing at this point. And in the next step, what we're going to do is we are going to add some watercolor paints to our design. 3. Step 2: Paint the Design: In this step, we are going to paint our design. So let's get started. The first thing that we're going to do is we are going to add a drop or two of water into each of our pans of paint. And what this will do is it will soften up our paint a little bit so that it is easier for us to use. I really do encourage my students to take this step because it helps. Okay. Now that our paints are softening up, let's turn our attention to our design. What we're going to do in this step is we are going to focus on painting our cat, so we're not going to be painting the background in this step. What I'm going to do is I'm going to leave these big eyes white, so I'm not going to be applying paint to those eyes. If you choose to leave your eyes white, as well, that's fine, or you can paint them any color that you'd like. Alright? Think about the colors that you'd like to paint your cat. You can paint your cat one color or more than one color. I'm going to paint my cat yellow and orange with stripes, and I think I might paint this little nose pink. Alright? So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start with my yellow, and I'm just going to make stripes starting at the top and going down all the way to the bottom of my cat. I want my color to be pretty strong. So I'm adding quite a bit of paint and just a little bit of water. Remember, if you'd like a strong vibrant color, then you add more paint, and if you'd like a softer color, then you add more water than paint. Alrighty friends, I finished painting with my yellow. The next color that I'm going to use is this orange right here. So I'm going to fill in those white spaces on my cat with this orange paint. And what's going to happen is that these two colors, the orange and the yellow, they're going to blend in a little bit with each other, and that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for them to blend in a little bit with each other. So as you will see, you will see that the colors are going to start to spread around on my piece of paper, and that's the look that I would like. Alrighty, there we go. As you can see, I painted my feet and legs orange and my tail, as well. When we come back in the next step, we will start painting the background. 4. Step 3: Paint the Background: In this step, we are going to paint the background. So let's get started. I've decided that I'm going to paint the sky back here, blue, and then my flowers. I think I'm going to paint those orange and pink to match with my cat. And then I'm also going to paint this grass green. So I'm going to get started on that. I'm going to start with my flowers. Maybe this orange right here. And then I'll paint the petals pink. And then I'll move on to the sky in the grass, and I am going to speed up my video. You can watch me, and it looks like I'm going to be painting very, very quickly, but I'm not going to be really painting that fast. It just looks like Alrighty friends, I'm finished painting my design. I hope that you had a lot of fun with this project. I will see you next time.