Follow Along - a Miracle WIP

I'm painting a portrait of a solid black cat in watercolors. The photo references all show the cat as a solid black mass with flashed yellow eyes. The cats name is Miracle and it will indeed be a miracle if I can pull off this one! I decided to post my work in progress (WIP) here so I'll be encouraged to keep going with it!

Here's the first post - (it's more than the basic first sketch as I didn't decide to do a WIP until I'd already gotten this far.)

Miracle WIP !

My paper (Arches 140# Rough) has been taped down with painter's tape mostly to keep a clean edge but also to help with buckling. I'm using various brands of artist's quality watercolor paint. The eyes won't stay the way they are now as I'm using a yellow underpainting. The violet/lavender colors are also areas of shading that I picked up by using my photo program to brighten the photos enough to get the barest hint of detail.

OK, this may take a while so don't give up on me! I'm just feeling my way along here & may even have to do some backtracking!

Until next time ----------------