How to paint a cat’s eye in watercolour

There’s a saying that ‘the eyes are the window to the soul’.

I think this is perhaps most true of cats. 

All it takes is for something to catch their attention, and we watch them switch from a domestic pet to a wonderful, wild predator in our home.

In just the flicker of an eye.

It’s one of the things cat lovers can find so awe inspiring about our feline friends.

So when we’re painting a cat portrait, it’s key to get their mesmerising eyes looking just right. 

We want to show how bright and reflective their eyes are, and convey a sense of the wildness behind them.

But achieving that can be quite challenging.

So I wanted to show you in this class how I painted the bright, shiny eyes in the cat painting which I shared the process for in this video.

This class is longer than most of the mini classes I share with you. It’s an entire Short tutorial from my online School, and you can paint along with me in real time.

As you’ll see, I worked much larger than life for this painting, and I recommend doing the same to help capture all the details and little shapes of colour. 

When we look at the subject not as one eye, but as lots of smaller shapes, we can achieve a highly realistic result with a shiny, 3D effect. 

And we can capture a glimmer of that elusive, feline mystery.

Starting with an accurate outline will help you do this, so take your time over the drawing; it’ll save time later in the painting process.

To help you achieve a good level of detail and accuracy in your drawing, I’m providing you with this printable PDF, which you can trace from.

Usually these PDFs are exclusively for my School members, but for this mini class I wanted to make an exception, as getting the drawing right is super important for this painting.

I hope this mini class has inspired you to paint a cat’s eye. 

Painting eyes that look realistic is a great skill to develop if you like creating animal portraits, and would be helpful prep for if you’re planning to have a go at the full cat painting, 

If you try it, I’d love to hear how you get on, so let me know in the comments below. And do leave me a message if you enjoyed the video. I love to read them!