Expanding your Visual Library

Expanding your visual library: Eye Studies

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ArtFrog

1. Introduction

Hello everyone! Art frog here with another lesson on expanding your visual library!

Now there are many good tutorials out there about drawing eyes, and they all have things worth remembering in them. (Be sure to check out the other tips of the month submissions!)

In this tutorial though I think I'll be covering some things others have, but also some things I have not seen discussed as much.

I hope it will help you grow in your understanding of drawing with a solid foundation and understanding of what you are trying to portray.

Lets get to it.

2. Studying from photos and life: The foundation of good drawing

True to form for this series of tutorials, we will be using observational study from reference.

I've went over why in previous tutorials, but to summarize:

1) If you want to draw realistically or even in an impressionistic way, you need to know how things look. (If you think you really know how something looks try to draw almost anything from memory that you have not drawn before in a realistic manner and compare it to real life, you are sure to see differences.)

2) If you want to make more cartoony, simplified, or stylized work, you still need a solid understanding of the underlying structure and essence of things as your foundation to build upon.

There are other side benefits to this kind of practice, (It is a good warm up, does not require a lot of emotional investment, and depending on your process can inspire ideas for other works, etc.) but for now lets stick to just making a good study.

3. Eye study: Instruction and process

Now where this tutorial will differ from some I have seen is we will be examining carefully the shape and form of an eye from observation. I have prepared my canvas in a similar way to the first lesson of this series.

Now you don't necessarily need to convert your reference to black and white (if you are working from a mirror instead of a photo you wont be able to anyway) but working from a grey scale image can be helpful at the beginning.

For the purposes of my step by step example I will be using a reference photo, but for some of the studies included I just used a mirror which I have set up next to my computer in order to study my own features and do self portraits. It is definitely tricky working from life (especially if you, who is constantly moving while drawing, are the model!) but it has unique advantages over photos.

The main one being you have full access to yourself as a model pretty much whenever you want to practice!

You can also take photos of yourself but I find personally it can be a tricky process getting it to look how you want and for the purposes of these studies as long as you are set up so you can work comfortably and efficiently you should be fine.

Feel free to use any included photos for your own study or just find something similar online to practice from. (You can even just grab the photo of my dog from lesson 1 and zoom in on her eye to practice a dogs eye!)

4. Tips: Notes on measuring and Sight Size

So here is my reference set up. Making your study in this way is similar to the academic drawing "Sight Size" method. What this means is, we are working side by side with our reference and trying to duplicate it very accurately. How artists would do this in the past is work life size and have their canvas set up right next to their subject. They would step back and look to compare directly in a similar way to what we will be doing here. You do not need to set up your studies like this every time. (If you are working from a mirror you will not be able to really!)

This method is a helpful way to start though.

(I am mostly using the "Colored pencil' sub tool under "Pencil" for this study.)

So after an initial sketch in black (shown above on the left), I took a sort of medium/dark grey to go over some of the lines and rough in the eyebrow and the outline of the area above the eye and under the brow that is in shadow.

The green horizontal lines are a technique you can use to help you place your features in the right spot, and the red vertical lines are there to show where features intersect vertically.

You don't need to actually draw the lines, (but you can if you find them useful) just keep in mind that this is one of the things I am looking at while I draw. Is the eye too wide compared the the eyebrow above? Too narrow? is the eye too round? Or too squished? Compare the distance between every "landmark" that you have established and ask these questions.

Drawing accurately is as much about looking at your subject as it is about making your marks!

Now I am putting in some of the darker areas I am observing. Notice the variation in thickness of the crease above the eyelid, and the bit of shadow I've indicated for the eyelashes.

Just how we are carefully comparing shape, make sure to compare to the darkest and lightest areas of your image as you work.

I use my brush set on a value that is a little darker than I think it should be, and then press gently as I lay down my strokes to build up the area so it is closer and closer to what I see in the reference. This helps me work the:

Tone (how dark or light it is),

Shape (how thick or thin a mark or feature is),

and the Edge (how hard or soft the transition between shapes is) all at once.

Keeping all these elements in mind as you work can be difficult, but working in layers and gently "building up" your values as you work I find helps a lot.

To help with this process, I've filled in the shadow area I outlined earlier with a grey that looks closer to where I observe it to be. Even if it is not 100% correct, it is closer than just leaving it white.

You may also notice, I've put in the Iris and Pupil. I do this carefully. Again, look at the distances and shape of the whites of the eye in order to make sure you put it in the correct place.

5. Tips: Comparing shapes

Here I've outlined the shape I am referring to traced out on the reference and on my drawing.

Look closely and you will see there are quite a few differences. Even if they seem minor, keep in mind as you work that if you notice errors and do not correct them these errors may get worse as you go.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to be looking at these shapes and the space between them!

Now, you can leave the highlights to the end, but I like to put them in about here as they are more shapes you can compare to. Look how there are tiny slivers of reflection near the lower eyelid, this is an extra detail to keep in mind with your own work that you can leave out or exaggerate depending on the mood/emotion you are trying to get across in your work.

I have also started to indicate the hairs of the eyebrow. this is done by gently building up the shape in narrow strokes and layers. Do not just put them in the colour of the hair or black just because they are dark! Look at all the variation in tone showing from light reflecting off the brow, and the edges where you can see the skin underneath more.

Indicating these edges where the form is turning into or out of the light well will really show off the texture of the object you are trying to draw/paint!

And here I am pretty pleased with the study. Look carefully at where I indicated slightly lighter areas on the eyelid and above and under the eye.

Now if you compare between my study and the photo reference you will see differences. At this point you can either adjust the drawing some more or just keep in mind where you went "wrong" this time and try to compensate in your next study.

Don't go too crazy adding in details! Just a few gentle marks here and there at the correct value, will go a long way to adding texture and life to your study.

You can also take more time to add even more (the skin around the nose and forehead etc.) if you like but depending how you do, you can turn a simple study into an interesting piece in it's own right. (I have seen many artists use semi abstract marks and indications around realistic eyes to great effect.)

Up a bit closer we can see some of the texture and variation I added in the iris (the colored area of the eyes.) This is because there is actually quite the amazing pattern in the iris! But remember, depending on the lighting of your scene/model you may not even see much separation between the pupil and iris! So use the knowledge of the fact it is there and how it reacts to various lighting situations and make a choice.

It is by having the knowledge of how things really look that gives the artist the ability to choose what to add and what to take away from their piece.

I believe this is one of the foundations of good drawing.

6. More studies and tips

Here is our study with some rougher ones done with different brushes/pens and from a mirror.

Top left is done with the "Charcoal" brush under the sub tool "Pastel".

The three studies on the top right are done with me tilting my head at various angles while I draw in order to see the differences in shape. (I think I used the "Calligraphy" brush under sub tool "Pen".) Because I was using a pen tool I was only really looking at the shapes and proportions for those studies. Take extra care when looking at the spaces between your shapes as you with the less elements you have, the more important it is that they are correct in order to show an understanding of the structure that is not there.

It is valuable to do those kinds of studies as well as the more "photo"realistic or painterly looking ones.

And bottom left is where I found how the light hits at a certain angle only illuminating a square area around the eye. (I think I used a watercolour brush.)

Take time to observe and find something interesting to work from and you may be surprised what you'll discover!

7. Blocking in: Another method of simplifying shapes

Here I have another starting method where you think of each complex shape as broken up into straight lines. The green lines are the simplified boundaries of our features, and the red are edges of our shadow area around the eye.

This is because it is much easier to judge straight lines accurately than curves. Once you have them in the locations you want, then you can further break it down into curves. This is just one of the tools you can use to make your drawing more accurate.

As you continue to work, notice the angle of the eye. in our reference you can sort of see by the position of the eye that the head is tilted down. Observe how the shape of the eye changes depending on the angle, and how much the whites of the eyes are showing.

These are the details you learn to add into your own work to add character and realism to your poses and expressions.

Always compare with your reference to see where your drawing can be improved!

And here after some work I have things close to the right value and I am liking some of the edges in the skin areas around the eye.

To get here, I have used the Colored Pencil brush under the Pencil sub tool to gently blend edges and bring the values up or down. The next steps are the same as outlined in the earlier example but I hope this helps to give ideas on how to proceed when tackling complex shapes!

And here is the study just about done. A little bit more blending and adjusting of the shapes and edges, and adding in the bit of highlight catching on the edge of the eye helps to pull it all together.