You’ve probably been there. You grab a pen, decide you’re going to doodle a quick kitten on a sticky note, and thirty seconds later, you’re staring at something that looks more like a radioactive potato with whiskers than a feline. It’s frustrating. Drawing a simple cat shouldn't be a Herculean task, but most of us overthink the anatomy. We get bogged down in the fur or the claws when, honestly, a cat is just a collection of liquid-like shapes held together by sheer audacity.
Most people fail at this because they try to draw "a cat" instead of drawing the circles and triangles that make up a cat. If you can draw a lopsided circle, you can do this. I've spent years filling sketchbooks with everything from hyper-realistic charcoal portraits to these quick, five-second doodles, and I’m telling you: the "simple" version is actually harder to master because there’s nowhere for your mistakes to hide.
Why Most People Get the Head Shape Wrong
When you think of a cat’s head, your brain likely defaults to a perfect circle. Stop that. Cats actually have a slightly squashed, oval-shaped head, especially if they have those chunky "tom cat" cheeks. If you look at the work of professional animators—think of the early Disney sketches or the minimalist style of Simon’s Cat creator Simon Tofield—you’ll notice they emphasize the horizontal width of the skull.
Start with a soft oval. Don't press hard. You want a "ghost line" that you can barely see.
Now, the ears. This is where the personality happens. If you place them too high, it looks like a startled fox. Too far apart? You’ve got a Yoda situation. The sweet spot is right at the "corners" of that oval. Think of them as two slightly rounded triangles. If you want a "simple cat" that actually looks alive, tilt one ear slightly to the side. It suggests movement and curiosity without you having to draw a single extra line.
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The "C" Curve Secret for the Body
Forget about legs for a second. Let's talk about the spine. A cat’s spine is basically a slinky. When a cat is sitting, its back forms a beautiful, sweeping curve. To draw a simple cat that feels "cat-like," you just need a large letter C.
Connect the bottom of your head oval to a large, swooping C-shape that represents the back. It’s a single stroke. Quick. Decisive. This gives the drawing a sense of "gesture," a term artists like Andrew Loomis championed in the mid-20th century to describe the flow of a pose. If your lines are stiff, your cat will look like a taxidermy project gone wrong.
You don't need to draw every muscle. For a simple version, the bottom of that "C" can just curl back inward to form the haunch. Cats are masters of tucking their limbs away. You're basically drawing a bean. A fluffy, judgmental bean.
The Face: Less is Always More
Here is a hill I will die on: do not draw individual eyelashes or detailed pupils if you’re going for a simple look. It gets creepy fast. The "Uncanny Valley" for cats is real.
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Instead, use two small dots or two downward-facing arcs (if the cat is happy and blinking). For the nose, a tiny upside-down triangle is the gold standard. But here is the trick most people miss—the "muzzle." Don't draw a mouth line. Draw a tiny "w" shape attached to the bottom of the nose. This represents the whisker pads. It’s iconic. It’s simple. It’s why Hello Kitty is a billion-dollar franchise despite having almost no facial features.
Whiskers should be a flick of the wrist. Three on each side. If you draw twenty whiskers, it looks like the cat walked through a spiderweb. Keep it sparse.
Let’s Talk About the Tail
The tail is the cat's mood ring. A simple cat with a tail tucked tightly around its paws looks calm or defensive. A tail sticking straight up with a little hook at the end—the "question mark tail"—is a sign of a friendly, confident cat.
Avoid drawing a thin, wiry line for the tail. It should have some girth. Think of it like a long, flexible sausage. When you’re finishing your drawing, make sure the tail follows the flow of the "C" curve you drew earlier. It should feel like a continuation of the spine, not an afterthought you glued onto the butt.
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Common Pitfalls and How to Dodge Them
One huge mistake is symmetry. Nature isn't perfectly symmetrical, and cats certainly aren't. If one ear is a millimeter higher than the other, leave it. It adds character. Another issue is the "stiff neck." In reality, a cat’s neck is almost invisible when they are sitting; the head just sort of transitions into the shoulders. If you draw a long neck, you’re drawing a giraffe in a cat suit.
Also, watch your proportions. The head should be roughly one-third the size of the body. If the head is too big, it’s a kitten (which is fine if that's what you want). If the head is too small, it looks like a bodybuilder cat, which is... a choice.
Actionable Next Steps for Your Sketchbook
You aren't going to get the "perfect" simple cat on the first try. It takes a bit of muscle memory. Here is how you actually get better:
- The 30-Second Challenge: Set a timer. Try to draw the entire cat—head, body, tail—in 30 seconds. This forces you to ignore the details and focus on the "gesture" and the basic shapes.
- The "One Line" Exercise: Try to draw the silhouette of a cat without lifting your pen from the paper. It’ll look weird at first, but it teaches you how the shapes connect.
- Observation over Imagination: Look at a real photo of a cat sitting. Squint your eyes until the cat becomes a blurry blob. What shapes do you see? Usually, it's just a circle on top of a larger triangle or pear shape. Draw those blobs.
- Inking: Once you have a pencil sketch you like, go over it with a thick black marker. This hides the "hairy" sketchy lines and gives it that clean, professional "simple cat" look found in modern illustration.
Grab a plain piece of paper—not lined notebook paper, which distracts the eye—and a soft 2B pencil. Start with that squashed oval. Don't worry about making it a masterpiece. Just focus on the flow of the lines.
Once you’ve nailed the sitting cat, try changing the tail position to change the "vibe." A frizzed-out, bushy tail for a scared cat, or a low, sweeping tail for a prowling one. The simplicity of the form allows you to experiment with expression without getting bogged down in anatomy textbooks.