First of all, welcome! I’ve a friend here who hails from Byron Bay, although she’s been in the States for some years now.

Can’t remember where I learned this tip for eyes. Either an art club lecture or a TV show long ago. In any case, get a good contrast going from dark to light, top to bottom, with just a dab of medium tone along the bottom of the eye. The greater the contrast, the more sparkly and “wet” the eye seems to look. Note that I enhanced one of these eyes in Photoshop, to demonstrate how increased contrast affects the look:

Don’t forget the highlight of course! This is a kitty eye, but it works with most any eyes. Works for marbles too. The key is contrast and a sharp highlight to make it glassy.

I used Phthalo Turquoise with a dab of Venetian Red to make the dark neutral for the pupil. For a green kitty eye you may want to run a variance in color as well as value… from deep emerald in the darks to nearly pure yellow in the lightest area.

Of course you’ll have to check the anatomical details of the eyes in question, but then, I drew approximately 264818734182346237623 unicorns in high school, with ballpoint pen, using this tip and the eyes were always the best part. Also, check our watercolor gallery for cat paintings. There have been a few with absolutely amazing eyes.

Someone will surely be along shortly with more (and probably better) advice. Hope that gets you started at least!

CK =)
I take great comfort in knowing that my genuine typos will probably be blamed on some device's autocorrect.
DIY art supplies, sketches, and more: cyntada.com / @cyntada

Glad you liked that, can’t wait to see your eyes!

Sylvia, that linked demo is wonderful. Now I want to go paint a cat

CK =)
I take great comfort in knowing that my genuine typos will probably be blamed on some device's autocorrect.
DIY art supplies, sketches, and more: cyntada.com / @cyntada

My 2 cents: I do eyes, it’s just kinda…comforting to me and creepy to others (both are good things from here :lol:) This is how I learned. It’s kind of involved, and it IS a technique for teaching yourself and there are probably easier ways

Study close up pictures of eyes (particularly irises, I did this by staring at friends and my eyes intently. DO NOT stare a strange dog in the eyes!!! This is potentially DANGEROUS) and paint them as anatomically as possible, disregarding all reflection for now. Study the anatomy of the eye, how it’s put together and how it sits in the skull. I saw a cow eyeball dissected, and pull from that knowledge in small ways. Understand how light works and how eyes see.

If you know all that, you will know things like how thick the clear bits are, how eyes are colored and therefore how they will look in different lights. It’s really cool, actually.

If that’s too much work (and I absorbed that information throughout my childhood so it may be impractical) My method of drawing eyes is as follows:
1. Draw eye opening shape
2. Draw orb of eye within
3. sketch in highlights carefully
4 Draw iris
5. draw pupil
6. sketch in shadows
7. shade color into iris, a little bit at a time.

Animal eyes, things to remember: They DO have whites in their eyes, often these are hidden sometimes they aren’t. Eyes are Orbs. Shape of the pupil, check out how it gets bigger/smaller so you can draw in lines of the iris to add life.

Draw, paint, draw, sketch, draw draw draw to get them right. Remember you don’t need to sketch the whole animal to practice the eyes!

I could probably say more, but I’ve babbled enough for now.
Peace!
Irry