The Eyes Have It (or at least they should)

Drawing eyes realistically can be a finicky business. A drawing can succeed or fail based on how well the artist captures the reality of the eyes. I spend a lot of time sketching eyes and dedicated a page of my sketchbook to working on some of the exercises in Giovanni Civardi's Complete Guide to Drawing which I discussed in my previous post.

Eyes aren't really that difficult, there's simply a lot going on with their construction. First, you have the round iris and pupil at center stage, but the shading on each is handled differently: the pupil is treated as flat whereas the iris can be treated as an inverted bowl. The fleshly parts around the eye have lots of nooks and crannies and here is where an excellent anatomy book can help tease out the various parts.

The mini-tutorial above shows the steps I've followed in creating the eyes in my sketchbook. None of the sketches are perfect (the irises aren't round, the symmetry is off, there are details overemphasized or underemphasized), but the main point is that practice makes perfect. The more you sketch something, the better able you are to recall those details when you draw it later.

I find eyes very satisfying to sketch. They're a good challenge and help keep your technical skills honed. I would highly recommend Giovanni Civardi's book Drawing Portraits to get you on your way to understanding the anatomy more clearly.