How to draw cat eyes

ln this tutorial l am going to give you a step by step guide to drawing cat eyes using colored pencils. The photos below are from an actual piece of my artwork. There are really no rights and wrongs with coloured pencils and there are many ways to do things. This is the way that l worked the eyes for this cute little British Breed short haired kitten.
​lt has the most beautiful blue gray eyes, with splodges of browny orange and gorgeous markings and whirls.
l must apologise for the variations in background colour in these photos, they are taken in my art room and the light varies with the sky, but you should still be able to see clearly the steps as l go.
ln the first shot below l began by marking quite heavily the white highlights with a white Caran D'Ache Luminance pencil, this it to keep that part the brightest and it also helps to resist other colors from covering that area. After that l took the lightest of my grey and peach shades and roughly blocked in the areas of colour and the main markings, particularly those little wavy lines that run around the outside of cats eyes. I have marked in the pupil and l have added highlights with my white Luminance pencil above those wavy markings. It all looks very rough at this stage and certainly not very realistic. Don't worry. Colored pencil always looks this bad for the first layers. And yes, those eyes look a little bizarre at the moment. When l felt that the color was not laying down as well, l blended it with oms.
Below you see the blended eye. The difference is subtle, it looks a little softer perhaps, the main reason for the blending however, is so that l can get more colour on top.
ln the shot below l am building color on top of colour. I have added ochre and a soft sepia, many more greys, more layers of black to the pupils and eye sockets. You can see how the white Luminance pencil has resisted the colors layered over it around the wavy lines around the outside of the eye. I keep looking back at my reference photo and add markings, spots, patches, darker areas as l see them. Again l work this way until layering the color further becomes harder, l then blend again.
Here in the shot below is the blended eye.
On to the next layers. More colors are added, shadowed areas are marked in in purples, blues and greys and more highlights picked out. This will be blended again.
ln the final picture you can see the near complete eyes, l have worked the area directly around them so that l can get a better feel for how they look. This is as far as l will take the eyes in one day, l will now add highlights and shadows, little markings and various colors every day that l continue to work on the piece. These changes will be subtle and very small, too small to pick up in photos, but what you see here should get you well on your way to creating a beautiful and realistic cat eye.