Rainbow Cat Watercolor

This is a pretty quick easy cat painting you can make in an afternoon.

I made this one for a friend to help cheer them up a bit, you can make this on pretty much any size paper with any medium you like. Mine is watercolor on a 8x5" piece of paper.

Note: I forgot to snap a picture before giving the final to my friend, so that will be added as soon as I get a chance.

• Watercolor paper (I use Blick brand)
• 7 colors of watercolor paint (or more or less, really up to you)
• A medium watercolor paintbrush

Alternatively you could use almost any medium you like, this pattern could make a cute painted box, fabric or simple art project for young children with anything from crayons to paint.

These cats are pretty much just ovals with little kitty ears and faces.

Starting at the bottom of your paper draw a few ovals, let them run off the bottom of your paper and make them take up the whole bottom. Add some cat ears to one side of them. You may want to add a more defined circular head to a few. Continue in this manner until you reach the top of the page.

Go through and erase all the inner lines and any overlapping lines. Start from the bottom and decide which cat will be "on top" erase all lines in that cat's shape. Work your way up the paper in this way. I outlines my cats in sharpie to help see this process. Do not outline in sharpie yet, this comes later.

If there are still some awkward blank spaces, especially on the edges, fill in with some sideways cats. Before moving onto painting make sure to add the eye spots. Draw the eyes on each cat as blank circles. Have fun, mess with placement and sizing.

With your first color(red) select a few cats that are not touching each other. For my paper size I started with painting 5 for each color. Make sure to paint around the eyes to keep them white. If you accidentally paint over them, dab the eye spot with a piece of paper towel or use a tiny brush with only clean water to rub some of the paint out.

While your first color is drying, select 5 more cats for the second color that are not touching the cats painted in the previous step.

Continue painting in that manor, never painting a cat that is touching a still wet cat. Doing this could cause the two colors to bleed together for a messy looking two-tone cat.

Once all colors are used, fill in blank cats with colors so that no two of the same color touch. This caused me to leave one blank since it touches a cat of every color. I really like this cat as a sort-of focal point.

Since watercolor dries around 60% lighter than when wet, you will likely need to add a few layers to each cat.

Leave your cats to dry at least overnight.

Once completely dry, you should still be able to see your pencil lines through the paint to an extent. Go over all the outer lines of the cats and their noses with a fine tip black sharpie.

Do not go over any portion of the eyes.

For the eyes leave the outer rim as pencil. Sharpie can bleed easily and turn into a scary black mask-instead of cute kitty eyes-fairly easily.

Experiment with different pupil placement and sizing, no two of my cats have the same eyes. You can try this on a separate piece of paper first or dive in on your painted cats.