Eyes can be hard to draw. I think the trick is to not think about how complicated an eye actually is. The key is to break it down into a series of interlocking shadow shapes. In other words, you are drawing the shadows themselves, and by doing this, the shape of the eye emerges.
Some light pencil strokes give me initial guidelines.
Now I start to add tone (value) to the triangular depression left by the recession of the eye socket.
You don't want to go too dark too fast. Remember, you are only drawing the shadow shapes.
I am not outlining the eye itself; this is what can throw you off. No lines exist in nature - only edges of planes. When you use line by itself to indicate form, your drawing looks flat.
The folds and creases of an eye are nothing more than shapes advancing or receding in space.
Those aren't eyelashes. What you see is the cast shadow from the upper eyelid - no lines used at all.
Now I add the pupil and the darker colored edge around the iris. By adjusting my lights and darks I create the illusion of curvature. The lighter areas come forward and the darker areas appear to recede.
The lower eyelid protects the cornea and helps to keep the eye in its socket. Feel your eye from your eyebrow down over both eyelids. What happens to the lower lid? Its shadow ends right where the cheekbone begins to shift forward.
I darken areas to indicate hidden folds of the upper eyelid and intensify the darks of the eyebrow itself.
The white of the paper separates the thin width of lower eyelid; the dark edge is where the eyelashes appear. A common mistake is to draw lines emanating from the linear edge of the eyeball. It's important to take this little space into consideration.
Now I start work on the inside corner of the eye - the pink area, which is called the lacrimal canaliculi.
It's not just a flat pink. Look at it.
I have added darker layers and moved the highlight over - more fine tuning of the iris.
An emphasis on the highlight with a white pastel pencil completes the drawing.
And the finished eye, drawn only in a series of shadow shapes that fit neatly together like a puzzle. Approaching facial features this way is guaranteed to improve your understanding of eye anatomy.
Paper used - my favorite, Strathmore 400 series drawing paper. It's a warm vanilla color.
©Johanna Westerman 2016, created exclusively for steemit
I did this a few years ago... A photo an ex took of me. And the eyes were the hardest. Thanks @fairytalelife for the technical aspects of drawing the eye. Cheers!
@macksby, hey! You tackled eyes from a difficult angle, but I can see that you drew what you saw and didn't mess it up by trying to make sense of things. In this perspective, you are drawing the eyes from above, so you won't see much of the space between the eyes and eyebrow. If you put your finger on your brow bone, it helps to understand how much farther back in the head the eyes are. I say you did a great job. Thanks for sharing this. Keep going!
There is so much talent on this site its mind boggling.
That's it. I'm finishing my tutorial redo tonight dammit!!
@fairytalelife Johanna, you get some of the real big guys, routinely.
If I can't get the attention, maybe you can give suggestions on how to promote etc?
any help is indescribably unbelievably appreciated.
Message me on steemit.chat
you got it!
Illuminati confirmed! (^^)b
You know it! :)
Hahaha!
Great post. The illustrations make it a lot easier to see, read and understand. I find hands really hard to get right. Could you do the same thing for hands please (and feet maybe)?
not, learn drawing it difficult for me :D
Thanks, @cryptofiend. I will indeed!
Thanks that would be a great help:)
I second the hands and feet request!
You are heard, @lesliestarrohara
That's amazing over 390 Votes and $2,000 for an eye tutorial, Its awesome how something so simple and brings nothing to steemit can make so much.!
I upvoted only because of the reputation, and its a good tutorial.
The steemit bandwagon is going hard here though.
Value is subjective, isn't it @carlidos?
Ohh no I wasn't bashing on your post of course it deserves what it gets, That's why I said its amazing "how this platform can make such things possible that no other platform in the world can do."
didn't mean to bring it in hard,
Yes value is subjective, again that's why it deserves what us users want it to.
Brings nothing to Steemit? This is a quality tutorial; the only thing that could have made it better would have been an individual video for each part.
This brings an interesting subject, that loads of people are interested in, to Steemit. Plus it helps us get away from Steem and crypto related articles.
Win, win, win, win....
Cg
You are right it is a good tutorial, didn't see it that way as taking us away from cryptocurrency.. are not to only be interested in crypto and steemit this of course is a social media platform that you can share what you love by writing about it some more than others might even like some art one here.
you go me there and again thanks for pointing that out to me.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, it's miraculous. :)
What do you mean it brings nothing to steemit? Perhaps you meant that it brings nothing to you?
I think, this plattform is about having fun reading and writting. Now, how do you define fun? How do you define likeness? Besides, voting for an article you dont like does nothing good to your reputation.
Sorry likening and giving an opinion is different. Never did I say I do not like it. " voting for an article you don't like does nothing good to your reputation." That's what you wrote and this is what I wrote "I upvoted only because of the reputation, and its a good tutorial." Does it not say its a good tutorial? If giving an opinion on a post is going to ruin reputations , than we all would have -1 don't you think? Free market to post what we want is free market. Again read my posts I was not even bashing on it. I was congratulating on how something so simple can make so many upvotes, only on steemit can that happen.
Eye expresses a lot of things and the feelings of the artist will reflect on it.
amazing. Followed!! UpVoted!!
you can submit as well this article to my How to Draw? question. I look forward for you to be there. Good Luck!!
Well, all went to draw eyes)
Well done :-)
you was very good at drawing,, learn drawing it difficult for me :D
Thank you, @kita! I hope you will keep practicing.
confirmed
This is amazing work and detailed artistic instruction; reminds me of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (except we're not doing it upside down). Thank you for this!
Thanks, @libertarianarts! Yes, I love that book.
Lovely to look at and you make it look so easy. Thank you!
Thanks, @ team101 :)
I will come back to this to make an attempt
Well done. Very good instruction, thank you for adding good content to steemit. You get my upvote for helping inspire people to draw. I used to be a portrait artist years ago, I posted my story and some examples of my work here https://steemit.com/art/@quickfingersluc/i-used-to-be-a-ink-portrait-artist-but-my-life-took-an-unexpected-turn-here-is-my-story .. Please take a look when you get a chance. I hope you get some good upvotes and it encourages you to post more drawing instruction.
Wow, @quickfingersluc. Thank you so much. I hope it does inspire -
I will take a look at your work.
Wonderful tutorial, thank you. Your example is inspiring and so lifelike, even in monochrome.
Thanks, @venusdehilo - it's very satisfying to work in pencil
that was a great post and I'm sure will help a lot of people, very nicely explained and the photos are s great reference too
@andressilvera, many thanks. I appreciate it.
Cool! I'm going to show this to my daughter, who is 11 and an emerging visual artist. She spends hours a day drawing.
That's how it all starts. Thank you!
Wow....I instantly started to see a pattern that makes sense when drawing. The 3 dark concentric curved lines with more thickness on the eyebrow. I've never seen it like this before.
I'm so happy to hear that, @johnnyrevolution. I guess there is a pattern. Drawing is really about knowing formulas - once you learn those, it's simply practice. Thank you.
This is probably the most interesting. Learn the secrets of the artist. Learn how to create all these paintings. For me it's always a kind of magic. As with any creative work. And this magic attracts.
Thank you for this lesson, Johanna! :)
Thanks, @omfedor. I am really enjoying your posts too.
I think your post has a great potential, to teach a lot of drawing techniques :) keep it up!
Thank you, @heverisson. I hope so!
You guys are so awesome. I appreciate it. Tutorials make it a lot easier to see and draw. Thanks for sharing. I loved it! Keep it up
Here's a simpler two step process to draw an eye:
Amazing check this out too @steemit44
amazing drawing and explained @fairytalelife
What an interesting post and insight into the creative mind of an artist! I think I'm going to try it! I guarantee it won't look as good as yours. 😉
Eric, thanks. You never know!
Add red pencil, stoned. :p
I remember using a similar method in a high school art class in the late 80's. The class was taught using a book titled "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain." I don't remember who wrote it. But, we would turn image upside down and would simply draw the lines and shading that we saw. The point was to remove from our minds any preconceived notions we might have about the images we were drawing. I thought it was quite effective.
It is great advice, @sextusempiricus. That's so your right brain can conquer the logical left brain and see what you are drawing as a form rather than something you "think" you know. Thank you for commenting.
I want invite you to Facebook Group "Steemit Visual Arts"to share good art posts. Let me know what you think. Lets make art big on Steemit.
https://steemit.com/art/@justoneartist/facebook-group-steemit-visual-arts
Nice post😍
Big aha moment!
Thanks, please do more :-)
Cg
AWESOME
great lesson!!
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is this 4th grade drawing?
you gona teach us the proportion of the human face next?
steemit is so dead.
push away new members but make drawing an eye (you shoulda learned in 3rd grae) worth 1.5k. yeah youall should cash out n run away quick. this shit dead in 6months tops
Move on, imposter. The real @jlwkolb, me, would never spam my own post. Honestly.