How to draw ·
How to draw a cat with kids: trace it with your phone (free picture)
A cat is the classic first drawing, and it's harder than it looks: two lopsided ears and it's a bear, whiskers too long and it's a mouse. Tracing skips the guesswork. Prop a phone over a sheet of paper, the picture floats over the page on screen, and the child draws what they see.
This cat is in DoodlePlot's free Cats pack, so there's nothing to buy.
Get the picture on the phone
Open DoodlePlot, go to the Cats pack, pick Happy Cat and choose Trace. The first time, the app asks to use the camera — that's how you see the paper on screen.
Prop the phone over the paper
Paper on the table. Turn two mugs upside down a hand-width apart and rest the phone across them, screen up, camera looking down at the page. For a tablet, use two sturdy bowls or a laptop stand laid nearly flat.
Tip: Tape the corners of the paper down so it can't slide while they draw.
Fit the picture to the page
Pinch to size the cat so it fills most of the page, drag it into place, then tap Lock. Slide Image strength until the lines are clear but the pencil tip still shows underneath.
Trace the outline, then the face
Start with the head circle, then the ears, then the big round body and the tail. Do the face last — eyes, the little nose, the mouth — and finish with the whiskers, which are the easiest lines on the page.
Tip: For a 4-year-old, just the outline and eyes is a win. The whiskers can be a second go.
Lift the phone and finish
Take the phone away and go over the lines with a marker. Add stripes for a tabby, or a patch over one eye. Color with crayons.
Keep it
Tap Save to Gallery — DoodlePlot photographs the paper drawing and keeps it in the gallery.
From tracing to freehand
Trace this cat three times on three days, lowering Image strength each time. On the fourth day, try it with the phone off. Most kids can do a recognisable cat by then — the head-ears-body-tail order is in the hand.
More cats
The Cats pack has ten cats in different poses — sleeping, stretching, sitting in a box. Trace a different one each day and you have a week of drawings.
Questions parents ask
- How do you draw a cat easily?
- Trace one. Prop your phone over paper with the picture on screen and draw the lines you see: head, ears, body, tail, then the face. It takes about ten minutes and the result looks like a cat.
- What do I need to trace with a phone?
- A phone or tablet, a sheet of paper, a pencil, and two mugs (or a stand) to hold the phone a few inches above the page. No printer, no light box.
Trace it with DoodlePlot
Prop your phone over paper and trace this picture through the screen. Free to download, ad-free, no account.