how to draw eyes

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If you have been practicing my portrait tutorials for drawing perfectly proportioned human heads, you are now ready to delve into the details with drawing features. I’ll start with the eyes, which can be very expressive! The eyes are one of the most important features to get right in a portrait, often times you can identify someone by only looking at their eyes. Just try a celebrity identification game, where they only show you eyes.

It will be helpful to have a photograph to look at for this exercise, because everyone’s eyes are so different. I’ll show you how to draw a basic eye, these skills can be applied to any type of eye. We have to start by thinking of the eyeball, everyone has them! It is a large three dimensional object sitting inside the skull that the eyelids lay upon. If you keep the form of it in mind, it will help stop you from drawing flat, unrealistic eyes.

The inner most line for the eyelids is drawn surrounding the eyeball. Notice how the size of the eyeball dictates where the eyelids end. The tear duct falls to the side of the eyeball but inside of the eyelids.

Eyelids have a thickness to them that we cannot ignore, and usually when looking at someone you can see the thickness to their bottom eyelid. The upper eyelid also has a thickness, which when we cannot see, we know is there because of the shadow it casts onto the eyeball.

The eyelid also usually folds and creates creases and wrinkles, we need to add these as well because they give even more character to the eyes. Be careful no to draw these in too harshly, examine your subject closely and draw lines in the skin delicately. Remember that we are made up of shadows and light instead of harsh lines.

Eyelashes are very delicate hairs, so we also refrain from drawing harsh stiff lines for them. Use some soft lines, some shadows, and examine your subject to see where you can see the most eyelashes. Usually when you are looking at someone straight on, you will mostly be able to see the eyelashes at the outer edges of the eyelids. Also make sure to not draw eyelashes into the inner thickness of the bottom eyelid.

The colored part of the eye is called the iris, and the black part is the pupil. Look at your subject closely and notice where the lights and shadows fall on the iris and pupil, the texture of the iris is usually not very harsh. Correctly placed highlights and shadows will give you depth and form, keeping it from looking flat.

We can’t forget the tear duct, this is also not a flat object and will have shadows and highlights because it is behind the eyelids.

The “white” of the eyes is never perfectly white, because it is actually a round object. Remembering the initial eyeball, add shadows to the edges of where the eyelids envelope the eyeball. Look at your subject’s eyes and capture the light that is hitting the eyes, as well.

Observation is the most important part of drawing. Spend more time looking at your subject then looking down at your paper and pencil. Capture the details and you will capture the likeness of the person you are drawing. Keep practicing and enjoy!

Related posts:

1. how to draw noses
2. portrait drawing tutorial
3. profile drawing tutorial
4. 3/4 view portrait tutorial
5. christina ricci eyes

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 am and is filed under art & design tutorials.