This painting is my pretty blue eyed snow Bengal Cassie as a young feline tyrant. Even as a kitten she KNEW without any doubt that she was in charge. It was never in question, never up for discussion. As soon as she arrived all the other cats acknowledged her as top cat without even a glimmer of protest and so, of course, did the humans. I think you can see that in her eyes, that confidence, and that’s what I want to capture in this painting.

Here’s the sketch for the painting.

The first layers of paint on paper. The paper is Bockingford watercolour paper with a couple of coats of an acrylic gesso which adds a nice texture under the paint. The finished painting will be about 14 x 10 inches I should think.

She is laying in a pool of sunshine on a green floor and her fur is full of warm tones while her eyes are a mix of cerulean blue with flashes of green and purple. Most of the underpainting is done now and I need to work on fine details and highlights and shadows.

A close up of her ear showing the texture of the paper and the way the paint sits in the texture, making interesting, subtle patterns and tones.

A close up of her eye. You can just about see in the photo that her eyes have several colours in them. There’s the luscious cerulean blue that gives Cassie her startling eye colour but when you look close, you’ll see there are turquoise greens in the highlights and purples in the shadows too.

The finished picture.