Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by James Dean and Eric Litwin is a popular children’s book title in first grade classrooms across the country. I took a stab at creating an art lesson based on the book, which wasn’t as easy as I had anticipated. My first graders were ready for a tempera paint project, so I tried to stay away from the plethora of adorable Pete the Cat paper craft projects that I saw on other sites.

You have a few options when creating a “Pete the Cat” art lesson. You can pull his cute little face from the pages and create a head and shoulders Pete project. I’ve seen a few projects that use templates and paper for this approach but I was more drawn to the full size image of Pete as there is opportunity for a lesson on perspective. Even then, there are a couple of options: straight on side view and a perspective view that shows one foot larger than the others.

I opted for the straight on side view as it seemed easier for my first graders. The twist for me was to angle the sidewalk so the kids could illustrate perspective in their background.

So that was my strategy. Want to see how it worked?

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 sheet of 12″ x 18″ white sulphite paper
• Black or light colored oil pastel (light is best)
• Tubs of yellow, green, blue, white, light blue and black liquid tempera paint or puck/cake tempera (more on this option later)
• Medium and small round brush

How to Draw Pete the Cat

Using a black or any light colored oil pastel (light blue is a good choice), start by drawing a letter “U” on the far right side f the paper. If a child makes his letter “U” too small for his liking, encourage him to draw right over the mistake. If you use a light colored oil pastel, the paint will cover the lines pretty darn well. I used black out of habit but it may not be the best choice for this project. Actually, as I’m writing this, the best drawing tool for this project might be a yellow or light blue chalk pastel. That way, if a child makes a mistake, the lines are so much easier to cover or even wipe away.

Back to the directed line drawing….

1. Draw a letter “U” for the face
2. Add two ears on either side of the letter “U” and a straight line to connect them.
3. Starting at the bottom of the face, place pastel on the left side and draw a straight line on an angle. Draw it about as long as your finger. Do the same for the other side. To connect the two, draw an upside down letter “U” and draw a horizontal line on the bottom of each leg.  The child’s sample (above) looks like Pete is wearing shorts but that’s because when the child drew the feet (sneakers), he forgot to line up the legs…
4. Add two front feet. Keep the feet big and simple at this stage. No shoes yet.
5. To draw the body, place pastel on side of head and draw a straight line towards the opposite end of the paper. Be careful not to go too far.
6. Swing down to make the bum and draw another pair of legs the same way as the front.
7. Add a curling tail.
8. To draw the eyes, draw two large almond shapes with a half circle on the top half of the eye. Add a triangle for the nose. Keep the nose towards the bottom of the face.

Tip: If I did this project again, I would skip drawing the face entirely and use paper to cut out eyes & nose shapes. Not only could you control the size of the eyes by using a template, but you could have some fun by adding glitter etc. to the eyes.

To draw the background:

1. Draw a horizon line (the line that separates the sky from the ground) about ⅓ of the way down the paper.
2. Place oil pastel halfway up the left hand side of the paper and draw a line on an angle towards the bottom of the page. This gives the illusion that Pete is walking towards you even though we didn’t draw Pete in the same perspective.
3. Add lines to separate the sidewalk.
4. At this point a child can draw houses along the horizon line, but again, you could leave this part and add paper-cut houses after the paint.

Painting the Background

I use pre-mixed tubs of liquid tempera paint. This means that I mixed the colors for the kids and created some light green for the grass, light blue for the sky and yellow for the sidewalk. You don’t have to do this of course, but I had the paints already mixed, so I did. Another option would be to use puck tempera. The paint is a bit easier to paint with and it would allow the little hands to control the paint better. Try a sample on your own to see which one you like.

If you get this far on your first day (40-minutes) well done. It was my goal to have children finish the drawing and the background so I could start fresh on Pete the next week. But a better strategy would be to do the drawing and paint Pete on day one and then do the background on day two.

This is a good time to paint Pete’s sneakers, but again, if I had to do it again,I would leave the paper white.

After painting Pete the Cat dark blue, use a very small brush and a tub of black paint to outline Pete. Using the black paint, draw laces and a bow on the shoes. This step can easily be done using oil pastel (perhaps a better choice).

For children who drew houses, I set a tray of colored oil pastels on the table and they used these to color in their homes.

For a final flourish, the kids dabbed some white glue onto Pete’s eyes and we sprinkled a bit of red/orange glitter on top. I know, but I couldn’t resist.

Final thoughts….

Like I said before, there are a few things I would do differently if I were to do this project again (chalk pastel for drawing, cut out eyes and nose, etc) but overall, the kids really enjoyed the book and this project and they learned how to follow a directed line instruction, draw a horizon line, add persecutive in a drawing and figure out how to cover mistakes with paint.

Pretty cute, huh?

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