How To Paint A Halloween Cat - Step By Step Acrylic Painting

How to Paint a Halloween Cat With Crescent Moon Painting

This is an easy acrylic painting that is great for beginners! You will learn how to paint a Halloween cat sitting on a Jack O’ Lantern. There is a crescent moon in the sky, the stars are twinkling and the wind is swirling. Hang your finished canvas on the wall along with all your Halloween and Fall decor!

This painting tutorial was updated into a Kids painting tutorial. See it here!

Materials:

Acrylic Paint (I use the Liquitex Basics brand)
Paint Colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Black, White, Gray, Pink
16″ x 20″ Canvas
Various Brush Sizes
Water
Palette or paper plate for palette
Covered work space
Table top easel (I recommend using an easel for best perspective!)
Chalk for drawing the cat

Directions At A Glance:

Start with Pure Blue Paint.

Load a large 2″ flat brush (or whatever large brush you have) with water.

Water down that blue on the palette.

Paint the entire canvas with watered down blue. Make your strokes go up and down in a vertical motion.

Fill the entire canvas. I like leaving some of the canvas transparent but if you want solid that is fine too!

Next get your chalk to draw on the canvas. Chalk will erase with a wet paint brush or your fingers. Draw a crescent moon.

Mix white and yellow together on your palette.

Paint in the moon shape.

Lightly paint in some curved lines around the moon.

Dip your medium flat brush in the yellow-white paint. Flick the paint with your finger and allow the paint to “spray” and “splatter” on the canvas. This represents stars! If it’s not splattering, try watering down the paint a little more by dipping your brush in the water.

Next I drew out the composition of the cat. With your chalk, draw a diagonal line. This line will help to draw the cat in at an angle. It will also help keep the drawing symmetrical.

Draw in a “cat eye” shape for the cat’s head. Keep in mind that the chalk is meant to be erased if you need to redo your shape. I re-did my shape five times until I got it right!

Draw in cat ears.

Draw in some more lines on the inside of the cat ears.

Draw in the body with a “squiggle line” on both sides. Remember, that line is to help with your symmetry.

Connect the bottom of the cat’s body with a line. Draw in the cat’s tail.

Draw a curved line for the pumpkin.

Draw a plus on the cat’s head.

This plus will help you draw the eyes. Draw in two “cat eye” shapes.

Finish the cat’s face with a nose and mouth.

Next, paint in the cat’s body with black paint.

Paint in the cat’s head but leave the eyes unpainted.

Mix white and green together on your palette. Paint in the eyes with a small round brush.

Add some black in for the cat’s pupils.

Paint in the cat’s ears gray. (If you don’t have gray, mix a little bit of black paint with white). Paint the nose pink. (If you don’t have pink, mix white and red).

With the gray and your small round brush, paint in the mouth and the whiskers.

Paint some “fur” lines on both sides of the head.

Add some more whiskers on the top of the head. Paint small white dots in the pupils of the eyes. Paint white “highlight” lines inside the ears. Paint white “highlight” lines on the green portion of the eyes.

Paint the pumpkin orange with a medium flat brush. The direction of the stroke should go in the direction of the curved line of the pumpkin you drew with chalk.

Paint red lines on the pumpkin with the same brush.

Load your brush with yellow paint. Lightly paint over the orange with the yellow. This will blend with the orange causing color variation in the pumpkin. If you need to re-paint the black bottom of the cat again, then do so.