Cat Wood Carving: Sketch, Shape, and Paint a Small Cat
This cat carving has four short legs, a rounded body, and a raised tail. The project starts with a side-profile drawing and uses new guide lines as the block is shaped. It is useful practice for relating several views of the same animal, especially around the legs and tail.
Choose a way to make the reference drawings
There are three ways to prepare the reference drawings. If you have a physical reference, photograph its front, side, and top, make silhouettes in a drawing program, and size them to your wood. Print the views at the same scale, align matching heights on neighboring faces, and fix the paper templates to the block so their outlines can guide the cuts. If you need to develop the form first, make a small clay model and use that as the photographic reference. A third approach is to draw from photographs and structural studies of the animal.
Whichever method you choose, the views must describe the same form at the same scale. Use the cat profile below to plan the drawing on the block.
Draw the cat’s side profile and proportional guides
Use a basswood block and draw the cat’s long side profile on a broad face. This profile locates the head, back, belly, legs, and tail along the block.
Draw the five horizontal guide lines and vertical center division shown in the reference. Use the three “1/3” labels along the right side to keep the marked intervals evenly spaced in this particular drawing. Check the ear, back, belly, and feet against the pictured lines as you copy the pose. Darken the outline after the proportions are settled, and shade the areas that need more wood removed.
Mark the legs and remove the rough waste
Mark the spaces between the front and back legs, including the pair on the far side. Add guides for the tail and rump. Check matching marks on opposite faces before cutting.
Use a narrow flat carving tool for the smaller leg spaces. For the wider spaces, use flat carving tools or a carving knife; a small saw can remove waste around the tail and body. Keep checking the four legs together so they remain part of one balanced form. For choosing a small saw and supporting the blank, see our saw and workholding setup guide.
Check grain direction and thin connections before reducing the legs and tail.
Connect the projecting areas with new guide lines
Once the rough depths are visible, mark the center of the back and the relationship between the tail and rump. Draw lines joining the projecting areas of the head and body. These marks help you decide which corners can be reduced while retaining the fullest parts of the form.
Round the body and establish the face
Round the rump, limbs, and the transitions where the belly meets the legs. Turn the carving as you work so that the body remains connected naturally to all four legs.
On the head, mark the most projecting parts of the nose and mouth. Shape the surrounding areas back from those points, rounding the head while preserving the muzzle. Refine the facial details once the larger forms are established.
Refine and paint
Sand where needed to soften unwanted tool marks without losing the face or the divisions around the legs. Finish with painted coat markings and a small expression.
The painting photographs show the patches carried around the head, back, sides, and underside. Check the cat from both sides before calling it complete, just as you did while drawing and carving it.
