cat drawing digital marketing

zuehls26364 April 18, 2023 Comment

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Learn how to paint a cat following along with this painting tutorial on the iPad Pro. Whether you are a traditional or digital artist, this approach will help you develop your skills and get results. As with any tool in the artist’s toolbox, it takes practice and patience to achieve a quality piece of fine art. Artists are visual learners and seeing the process step-by-step can help you understand how to create portraits of your own.

This portrait features a very special cat named Tippy. He was a feral cat (thus the tipped ear) who decided he liked humans and living indoors. I met him at a local pet store where the lovely women of Diva Cat Rescue had him up for adoption. He was such a handsome boy I had to paint his portrait to help get him and the organization get a little attention. The good news is that he did eventually find his forever home. If you live in the Kansas City area and are looking for a cat, please reach out to them on Facebook

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Digital oil painting has become increasingly popular for fine artists in recent years. There are many programs to choose from including Photoshop, Procreate and ArtRage. I’ve used all three and they are all fantastic. Through my professional career in advertising, I used Photoshop just about every day but never liked the results I got doing fine art painting.

The same goes for Procreate. I couldn’t get the feel of real oil painting – not until I tried out ArtRage on my iPad Pro. I was able to paint just like I do on canvas and get the look and feel I wanted the first time I tried it. So that’s why I’m recommending it in this tutorial on how to paint a cat, but feel free to use what works for you.

ArtRage for the iPad is only around $5. The desktop version starts at only $30, so if you have a computer drawing tablet or are good at handling brush tools with your mouse, you can paint that way as well. You can always upgrade to the full version of ArtRage later.

Pencil Drawing Cat Images, Stock Photos & Vectors

Don’t have an iPad Pro or computer to paint with? No worries! You can paint along using traditional paint and canvas. My approach with this tutorial on how to paint a cat is the same as my approach on canvas. I’ll add comments regarding traditional painting along the way. You can purchase renewed iPad Pros off of Amazon for a lower cost. I got my iPhone that way and so far it works perfectly.

If you’d prefer to see how I paint a cat via video, check out my new YouTube iPad painting tutorial. You’ll get to see a little speed painting of how I did this on the iPad. This is a brand new channel, so your views, likes and subscribes count BIG TIME. I’d love to hear from you if you like the video.

Before we get started, here are the canvas settings I used in ArtRage. The width was set to 1536 and the height to 2048 which is an odd size. I made this painting smaller so it had a smaller file size. If you want an 8×10 canvas, the width should be 2400 and the height 3000.

Tuxedo Cat Sketch Print Art Illustration Cat Drawing Cat

The brush tool starts with the glossy oil paintbrush, but when I increase the pressure and loading it changes to “No Preset”. I don’t use any thinners as I’m not a fan of the transparent look. I also make sure my brush is fully loaded so there is a lot of paint to push around. Occasionally I’ll use the square head but mostly stick to the rounded brush.

If you’ve seen any of my other digital painting tutorials, you’ll know that I always say to start painting in your dark areas first. The same goes for oil painting. If you paint traditionally, check out my tutorial on Jorge & Nacho here.

Below you see that I’m using dark paint over a very loose sketch of the reference photo. If you want to see step-by-step how to draw using the sight-size method, check out this tutorial on painting a portrait. Otherwise, freehand your sketch or trace it in the program.

Draw Pet Cat Animal In Anime Or Furry Style By Norshie

While painting you will be correcting your drawing as you go, so I wouldn’t get too tight on your sketch. Just make sure your proportions are correct. Using a proportional divider, the sight-size method or your thumb on the end of a pencil to transfer the measure from the reference to the artboard will work too.

With the desktop program in ArtRage, you can add a grid to your reference and canvas to draw. I’ve started using the ArtRage program to add a grid to my reference photo and then draw a proportional grid on my physical canvas for traditional work. There are SO MANY ways to get started and all of them are right as long as it keeps you moving forward and making art.

On canvas, I use vine charcoal to sketch with and follow with burnt umber to paint in the dark areas. When you get your darks painted in first, it helps you to see proportions and will be a good starting point for establishing your lighter values.

Cat Drawing Images, Stock Photos & Vectors

I’m a sucker for eyes so I always paint them in right away. I get a nervous feeling if the eyes aren’t looking good early in the painting because they are so important to me in my finished work. As you can see below, I simply blocked in a dark green value at the top of the eye, a medium green value in the middle and light green at the bottom. The lid of the eye creates a shadow at the top, so when drawing or painting eyes, most of the time you will need darker values at the top.

Using a gray scale and value finder is especially helpful if you are painting traditionally. I use one all the time and even after years of doing art, I can still get my values too light. The human brain thinks the world is brighter and more colorful than it is, so it’s not our fault. We just like bright, shiny things.

I didn’t blend the eyes too much at this point, but when I do blend in ArtRage I use the “just blend color” knife sparingly. When you paint a cat traditionally you can use any soft, clean brush with a very light touch to blend things out. I’ve even used makeup brushes to get a soft blend. BUT, to achieve a more painterly look don’t over blend. Lay down as many of your colors as you can without blending and then go back in and blend if you need to.

Realistic Cat Drawing Images, Stock Photos & Vectors

Some of the most famous painters of realism didn’t blend that much. John Singer Sargent is one of them. He took the time to match values and put the color in the right place. If you view his work from a distance, it looks almost like a photo. However, when you get up close it looks like a mess.

Letting go of perfection and being OK with a little mess is my biggest struggle in painting and something that can paralyze me. I’ve had a huge creative block recently because of that. I’ll be breaking out some paints and forcing myself to make a mess to snap myself out of it. Fingers crossed it works.

After roughing in the eyes I quickly moved on to laying in various mid-tones. With this cat, his fur is dark with medium-toned tips called ticking. This was more of a challenge to paint than I expected. What I ended up doing was paint everything darker so I could add more detailed highlights later.

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I don’t like to go as far as photo-realism, so keeping things loose and sketchy at this point helps me move a little faster. This is called painting “ugly” and every time I’m in this stage I worry if the painting will turn out or not. I have trust issues with my art!