Art Activity #5: They All Saw a Cat Illustration
Today’s art activity benefits from a little context, and that is this week’s read aloud:
They All Saw a Cat by Brendan Wenzel.
You can watch it here:
In today’s activity we are going to pick something or someone to see the cat, and draw what they see when they look at the cat. For this project you will need:
pencil
paper
colours of some sort (markers, crayons, pencil crayons)
a hard surface to draw on
time and patience with yourself
In the story, the illustrations show how all the animals see the cat in different ways. The dog sees the cat as long and lean with big eyes and no claws. The bell on the cat’s collar appears giant because the dog has big, sensitive ears, and the bell stands out to it more than some of the cat’s other features.
Before you start to draw, consider from whom’s perspective you want to draw the cat. You could pick a character from the story, or choose something new for yourself. Here are some ideas, but feel free to come up with your own idea yourself!
A fly saw a cat.
A scratching post saw a cat.
A squirrel saw a cat.
A sofa saw a cat.
A cow saw a cat.
A can of tuna saw a cat.
Once you have chosen who is seeing the cat, consider what parts of the cat would stand out the most to that thing. In the book, the dog sees the cat’s bell as HUGE and doesn’t see the cat’s claws at all, while the mouse sees the claws and teeth and eyes as big and bright and scary. How does your perspective see the cat? How does it feel about the cat? What parts of the cat stand out? What parts of the cat are the most important? What parts are the least? How can you reflect this in your drawing?
Follow these steps when working on your cat illustration:
Chose who is seeing the cat, and what features you will emphasize (draw attention to) or minimize (draw attention away from) in your illustration.
Lightly sketch out the basic shape of the cat on your paper using a pencil. To keep your sketch light, avoid putting too much downward pressure on your pencil. The lighter your sketch is, the easier mistakes will be to erase.
To emphasize parts of the cat, draw them bigger, use bold, sharp lines, and colour contrast (white teeth against a bright red mouth is a great example of contrast).
To minimize parts of the cat, draw them smaller, farther away from the viewer, or with softer lines and colours.
Once you like the lines you’ve created in pencil, go back over them with something more permanent, like pen or marker to “lock them in” — this way you can erase your pencil lines without losing the shapes of your cat.
Carefully consider what colours to use when colouring your cat. For example, when the mouse sees the cat the colours are bright and bold and shocking, they really convey how afraid the mouse feels when it looks at the cat. Try your best to capture how your subject feels about the cat in your colour choices.
When you have finished your illustration you can take a photo of it and email it to me to share in the student gallery, and share it with your peers and teachers on Microsoft TEAMS.
This is a more complicated drawing challenge because it requires you to use your imagination to see something from the perspective of something else. You can extend this activity by choosing something else to draw from another’s perspective. Perhaps how a dog sees a fire hydrant, or how a duckling sees its mom. The possibilities are endless! I would love to see anything you come up with.
Miss Marks decided to draw how a mail carrier would see a cat that likes to steal letters! She chose to emphasize the cat’s claws and teeth to show the mail carrier’s fear of getting scratched by the cat when delivering mail.
