The five Mont Marte pastels I used These are the five colors that I used. Try to match the hue of my scan as well as you can from your set or box of soft pastels. The red should not be either orangy or too purplish. Ultramarine is the best blue, but any mid blue that's reasonably dark like that is good. The yellow should be a lemon yellow.

Black Cat Sketch Using the corner of your white pastel stick, or using a white charcoal pencil, sketch the cat onto your black paper. You can enlarge and print out my sketch if that would help. Alternately, look at or trace a good photo of your own black cat and sketch or trace, then transfer your sketch with white transfer paper onto the black paper. It's always best to use your own reference photos.

Color Blocked In Using the blue pastel, I blocked in all the major highlights on my black cat sketch. Pay attention to where the light falls in your reference photo. Even if the highlights look grayish, making them blue makes them dramatic. With the red, I shaded into the inside of the ears and rubbed it in till it became a very dark red.

Eye color mixed (same as step 3 photo) Same picture, different part of doing this stage: the eyes. Go in heavy with white in the entire eye area, then cover the colored part of the eye with yellow. Touch in just barely the slightest touch of red. Blend with a cotton swab and repeat with blue, a little heavier. There is now a mixed neutral color. Repeat the yellow stronger. Repeat the blue. If needed repeat the white to lighten it, barely touching and then blending. This took me about 8 layers to match the eye color perfectly and was the most difficult mixing task in the whole project. End by putting in the black pupil with the corner of the black stick and the white highlight on the right side of the eye curve to show where the light falls.

The final stage! I refined the highlights by going over them very lightly with white and blending them softly, creating some dark and some light highlights to give more depth. I blended as little as possible and tried to keep the character of my strokes. I filled in the black background with the black stick. I detailed around the eye and refined the eye. Then I added some pale hairs in the ear and the white whiskers that looked so dramatic in my reference photo. If you want black whiskers on your black cat, be sure they cross highlights and that you put in a lighter colored background. Try orange for Halloween or a bright purple or some greens -- you can mix any color you want from three well chosen primary colors and black and white!