Anatomy of the Eye.. and How to Draw It
Mar 9, 2011 Drawing
What is more alluring than the eyes? For many portrait artists, it’s the eye that is the main attraction, the feature that drives us to draw portraits at all. There is the intricacy of the structure to master, and then there’s the challenge of capturing something as elusive as emotion.
I’ve talked about drawing eyes before. I’ve covered tips for drawing eyes, as well as done a full tutorial on drawing and shading the eye.
Today, I am going to take a more general approach on how to draw the eye from a knowledge of basic anatomy. An awareness of the structure of the human eye will help you in achieving a realistic likeness in your portraits no matter what your reference image is like.
1. The Tear Duct
Often over-looked, this tiny little apparatus is essential! While the outside corner of the eye is pointed, the inside corner forms a little round nub. Next to the tear duct, before the white of the eye, there can often be seen several tiny folds of skin. Of course, if your portrait is quite small, you won’t need to worry about these details.
2. The Iris
This is the exciting part of the eye. The coloured area, it is actually a muscle that relaxes and contracts in order to allow certain amounts of light to pass through your pupil. When drawing the iris, you need to take into consideration the colour of the eye. Blue eyes will be shaded lighter, brown eyes shaded darker. Don’t forget to add some detail in the form of striated, radiating patterns. Also, the outer edge of the iris is often darker than the rest.
3. The Eyelid Crease
Often, all we see of the eyelid when the eyes are open is the crease above the eye. Sometimes, we see the entire crease and sometimes the fold overlaps the outer edge of the eye. These details are a huge part of creating emotion and individuality in your eyes. Although we see the crease as a line, don’t forget to add some shading to create a short, but smooth transition to the lighter areas of the lid.
4. The Eyebrow
This is another key element for showing expression. In general, men tend to have thicker, straighter brows that are lower (closer to the eyes). Women’s brows are thinner, more arched and placed higher on the face. Check out my eyebrow tutorial for more details on how to achieve the right texture.
5. The Whites of the Eyes
Scientifically known as the sclera (my day job keeps me refreshed on grade eight biology terms) the whites of the eyes are not actually white! Like any three-dimensional object, the whites of the eyes vary in value. Under the eye-lid, the eyeball is a sphere and should be shaded accordingly. The whites are often darker in the corners of the eye, lightening towards the middle. They are also darker right under the upper eyelid, as the eyelashes cast a shadow.
6. The Lashline
The lashline, or the edge of the eyelids, define the shape of the eye. In general, the eye is widest where the iris is. When drawing the lash line, your technique depends on the size of your drawing. For very small portraits, a slight darkening of the upper lash line is sufficient. For larger portraits, you will want to draw the individual eye lashes. To do this, use short, quick, curved pencil strokes. Start at the eyelid and pull away, creating a tapered line that mimics lashes.
7. The Highlight
This is the point of the eyeball where the light is hitting it directly. Because the eye is wet and shiny, the highlight is often quite hard-edged. The shape depends on the type of light source. For example, light from a window will create a square highlight. This part of the eye should be significantly lighter than the rest of the eye, pure white if possible. The highlight gives your eyes sparkle and makes your portrait come to life. Even if your reference doesn’t have one, add it in!
8. The Pupil
One of few objects in nature that is perfectly round and symmetrical, the pupil is the actual hole in your eye that allows light to enter. If you want the eyes to be the focus of your portrait, make the pupils the darkest value. Also check out this post by portrait artist Gwen Seemel where she explains that larger pupils are more attractive.
Tags: better drawings, draw eyes, drawing tips
Tips for Drawing Eyebrows
Dec 19, 2009 Drawing
Mashi recently asked a question on my eye tutorial about how to draw eyebrows. Eyebrows are made up of hundreds of individual hairs, so we should draw them the same way we draw any other kind of hair. That being said, there are a few strategies to use when drawing realistic eyebrows.
First of all, it depends on the size of your portrait. If the face you’re drawing is quite small, you simply won’t have the room for detail. For small drawings, delicate shading is all you need. Look closely at your reference for the shape and size of the brows. Sometimes, if a person has very light or very thin brows, you won’t actually see the entire arch. This is especially true for kids.
A few things to remember:
- brows are generally widest near the nose and taper towards the outside of the face.
- women’s brows are thinner, more arched, more tapered, and slightly higher on the forehead.
- men’s brows sit lower, are wider and straighter.
- eyebrows are thicker along the top edge, and more sparse at the bottom edge.
- the hairs are curved, and change direction.
Once you’ve drawn the contours of the brow, you can use a very sharp pencil to start layering in the hairs. Start at the base of the hair, and flick your wrist to create a tapered line. Towards the nose, the hairs tend to grow straight up. They begin to angle as you move away from the face. Don’t draw all of your lines parallel, make sure some of them cross.
The edges of your brows shouldn’t be too even or too regular; add some stray hairs along the bottom edge to make it more realistic. You can also use a kneaded eraser to highlight a few of the hairs.
Sometimes, a slight suggestion of hairs is all you need, especially on very light brows. Build up layers slowly until you achieve just the right effect!
Tags: better drawings, draw eyes, drawing tips
How to Draw Eyes – Tutorial
Jul 19, 2009 Drawing, Tutorials
Everyone has their own way of drawing eyes and when you’re just learning, it can be very helpful to look at as many different techniques as possible. In this article, I talked about general tips for drawing eyes and provided some links to tutorials on the web. Now, here’s my tutorial.
1. The first step is the reference. Find a reference photo that is clear, detailed, and has a range of lights and darks. This reference image was borrowed from the Image Library at Wet Canvas. You can grid your reference by hand or digitally, whatever works for you. If your picture is in colour, make a grayscale version to show just the values.
2. I grid my paper to correspond with the reference and begin my line drawing with an ‘H’ pencil. This shows not only the placement of the elements of the eye, like the iris and pupil, but also shows the placement of major areas of shadow and light. This is probably the most important part of the drawing, and it’s a good idea to take your time. The more careful you are here, the more accurate your final drawing will be.
3. I erase the grid lines and begin to block in the basic values with a ‘B’ pencil, using these shading techniques. Many people work from light to dark, but in general I prefer to work dark to light. By starting with the darkest values I instantly get a sense of the dimensions of the drawing and can shade other areas accordingly.
I shade overtop of where the eyebrow will be in order to establish the skin tone that will be seen underneath the individual hairs.
4. Now I blend the entire drawing with my blending stick. Here it’s important to work from light to dark, and as your blending stick gets dirty, clean it off on a sheet of scrap paper.
5. You’ll notice that some of the definition is lost through blending. Now I will use my ’2B’ pencil to go in and add some of the dark details, blending as I go. Pay close attention to the shadow and patterns within the iris, and keep in mind that the crease of the eyelid is not a solid line: it is a shadow that blends out towards the edges.
6. Next I will use my kneaded eraser to create highlights. With a kneaded eraser, it’s best to dab at your drawing instead of rubbing it. This will pick up the graphite, lightening the area without smuding. I add the highlights to the tear duct and along the edges of the eyeball. Of course, depending on the size of your portrait, some of these details may not be visible.
7. Next I use my ’4B’ pencil to darken the pupil, the outer edge of the iris, the edges of the eyeball and the crease of the lid.
8. Now it’s time for the eyebrow. It’s important to save the hair for last, otherwise you would be trying to draw around it. I used a “4b” for the eyebrows and eyelashes, sharpening it regularly to keep a point. When drawing eyebrows, place your pencil at the spot where the hair starts and flick your wrist to make a short tapered line. Also keep in mind that eyebrow hairs are curved and that they grow in different directions. Those near the nose tend to grow more upwards, pointing out more as you move to the edge of the face. The key to drawing hair is building up layers. For this eyebrow, I did a layer of flicking strokes, then blended it. Then I used my kneaded eraser to pick up a few highlighted hairs, then did more pencil strokes.
9. The last step is the eyelashes. Use the same wrist-flicking motion as you did for the eyebrows to make curved lashes that taper at the end. Make sure your lashes aren’t too thick or uniform. Notice how eyelashes sort of bunch together to come to a point, growing in different directions to cross over eachother. At this point in the drawing, I would go in and touch up any highlights or blending .
How to Draw Eyes
Jun 25, 2009 Drawing
Eyes can be very tricky to draw, mostly because we all have preconceived ideas about what an eye looks like. Again, this is where a detailed reference comes into play. The eyes can be the key to the success or failure of a drawing. As they say, the eyes are “the window the soul” and can capture the personality of a portrait.
View my step by step tutorial on how to draw the eyes.
Here are a few general tips to keep in mind when drawing eyes:
- The eyeball is a sphere, it should be shaded as one.
- Don’t forget the highlight, this is what gives the eye its sparkle!
- The cornea (the lense covering the iris) sticks out from the eyeball. This means that the lids will be widest wherever the iris ispointing.
- The iris is the perfect circle found in faces, but this is only when we see it from head on. When we see it at an angle, it becomes an ellipse.
- Eyelashes are curved, and they grow in all directions crossing over eachother.
- Eyelashes close to the inner eye sometimes point down and cross the eye itself.
- Don’t forget about the tear duct! This has a distinct shape, shadows and highlights of its own.
- You can often see the inner edge of the eyelid, especially on the bottom lid, before the lashes start growing.
- The iris is not a solid colour, it has radial patterns and usually a dark inner and outer ring.
On the Web
On my travels through various art blogs, I’ve come across some excellent tips and tutorials. Each of these approaches drawing the eye in a different way, giving you the advantage of a couple different techniques.
Annette Labedzki’s article describes the steps to consider when drawing the eye.
Visit Stan Prokopenko’s blog for a tutorial that very clearly demonstrates the structure of the eye and how to draw it.
And finally, Faith Te’s tutorial gives a step by step guide to drawing and shading the eye. She uses graphite powder and brushes, but her process can be used with other techniques as well.
Tags: better drawings, draw eyes, drawing tips, getting started, portraits
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