This watercolor taco cat is the cutest ever! Not only is “taco cat” a pretty cool palindrome, but October 4th is also National Taco Day. So let’s bring the two together and paint this cute taco cat together.
This cat is obviously inspired by my own cat, Aslan. 🙂
Supplies:
- Paint: LUKAS Aquarell 1862 Watercolor
- Brush(es): Creative Mark’s Mimik Synthetic, round size 3
- Paper: Canson XL Watercolor Paper (5″x7″)
- White gel pen
- Jars of water
- Pencil and eraser
- Paper towel or cotton rag
- All of my favorite supplies here
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Sketch your cat
Start with a wide oval for the head. Then add two rounded triangles for the ears. I like to use wide circles for the eyes. And then sketch a nose and the mouth. Feel free to add other details that are unique to your cat. Mine’s a tabby, so I like to add a few stripes on the forehead.
Next, I like to erase most of the pencil lines with a kneaded eraser. Pencil lines are difficult to erase once you’ve painted over them. And kneaded erasers only pick up the graphite without altering the paper’s absorption properties.
Paint first layers
Because Aslan is a beige/buff tabby cat, I mixed up a light golden/tan color for the first layer. Again, feel free to use whatever color matches your cat! Before moving onto the next step, make sure that this first layer is completely dry.
The taco toppings will go around the cat’s head like a crown. I’m using a sap green color for the lettuce. Use random dots and lines to spontaneously add strokes. Make sure to leave some white space.
Once the face layer is dry, paint in the eyes and other facial features. Even though Aslan’s eyes are golden, I make all my cat drawings’ eyes brown.
Paint second layers
I added a second layer to the cat face to add some dimension.
Once the lettuce layer is dry, add in red for tomatoes and yellow for the corn. Then use a light pink color for the ears.
Paint the taco
I’m using a mustard yellow for the taco shell. Start with two slightly curved triangles that appear at the bottom corners of the cat’s head.
Then, paint in the bottom of the taco shell below the cat’s head. Now your taco shell is complete!
Add final details
Some of my final details included writing “taco cat” in cursive below the illustration.
And then I added white highlights to the eyes and nose with a white gel pen.
Super cute! What do you think?
Watercolor taco cat – full video tutorial
Thanks so much for painting with me! I’d love to see your watercolor taco cat!
If you use this tutorial, please tag me on social media @AudreyRaDesign and use the hashtag #PaintWithAudrey.
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