Black Cat in Watercolour Tutorial

I was browsing the web for watercolour ideas and I stumbled across Braden Duncan's work. One image in particular caught my eye as it was a black cat that looked exactly like Salem, my family’s newest fur-baby.

Salem

I thought I’d have a go at replicating it. Here are the steps that I took:

Black Cat in Watercolour Tutorial

1. Sketch the cat (I traced the original, then placed it over the watercolour paper and redrew over it, getting faint indents into the paper to work with.
2. Lightly wet the background outside of the cat. 
3. Layer the purple, darkening the purple by using extra layers in the corners. You could use some black to darken it up if you wish.
4. Fill in the cat layer by layer with black, building up to get that rich black tone. Each layer should use less water. Keep it light where you want the reflections. 
5. Use a small (I used a 000) brush to fill in the black and green of the eyes.

I finally got a 000 brush and wow it made the fine detail of the cat’s eyes so much easier! This is probably my favourite piece so far. My daughter has already claimed it for her room!

Make sure you check out Braden Duncan’s work. He does amazing pet portraits!