Eyes are the most important feature in a portrait. They influence the weights for the rest of the portrait. They are also the most expressive part of a face. You can convey different emotions just by changing the eyes slightly. In this article, I will cover the key aspects that are to be kept in mind while sketching the eyes.
As I have covered in my previous article, sketching is just the art of seeing through the illusion and understanding the key areas which make the “reality” took “real”.
Lets take a look at some of the snaps of eyes here. For the eye to look real, it should be reflective – which means, it should have a lot of highlights. I have marked the highlights that are really prominent while sketching the eye. The placement of highlights, size and the intensity are very important. These determine how reflexive or watery the eye is, changing the emotion which is shown in the eyes.
Next, a picture I got from facebook. It belongs to a friend, but I use it here because it is very crisp.
In this, the highlights as well as the placement of the eye have changed, this gives an impression that the person is tired.
Now to look at carefully – the key things to note are:
– You often see just a portion of the iris. Often when you see the complete iris, the expression comes out to be that of surprise or being highly alert.
– The pupil is the darkest part, usually the darkest of the shades on your portrait. It determines the relative weights of other shades.
– Iris has a dark outline, which fades towards the eye in a gradual fashion. You can also see radial lines of different weights in the iris. These seem to emerge from the outline of the iris and fade away towards the pupil.
– The highlights in the top of the iris are very important. Often, they even cover the pupil to a good degree. The highlights that people usually miss are the ones related to the eye lids and the corners of the eye sockets. The tissue here has a slight highlight which gives a lot of realism to the picture. Also, highlights bring out the thickness of the eyelids.
– Eyelids have thickness. This is often ignored by beginners and they tend to draw the eyelid as a single line. It has a thickness and in itself also has some amount of gradient, even if it is subtle.
– White of the eye is not completely white – because the eye is kind of spherical, some shadow regions and some highlights are formed. This gradient helps in creating the depth required. When creating enlarged portraits, also consider showing the nerve indications in the eye.
This is the eye portion of my first charcoal sketch. Notice the thickness of the eyelids and the gradients in the right corner of the eye. These bring the depth in the picture which makes it look realistic.
The above pic is from the pencil sketch.
These were the very first sketches I made and I still learn from them. I had considered the aspects which I mentioned earlier while sketching these.
In the next article, I will be covering how to sketch the eye layer-by-layer taking into consideration the points I have mentioned here. It will be aimed at people who have never sketched but want to make it a hobby. Will be covering basic blurring techniques and working with the tortillion.
Sketching is an art, and like any art, the more you love it the easier it becomes to master. Hope you fall in love with it :).