Practicing the Eye

By Elissa Rosenthal

The eyes, in my opinion, are the focal point to a character or portrait. So, I decided this week to practice drawing some eyes. Particularly my eyes for studding the structure and proper placement since, if I need a new angle, I can take another photo of the same eyes. 

I decided to take a photo instead of studying in the mirror since it's pretty difficult to understand how large the iris needs to be when your eyes are looking at your eyes. Plus, I wear glasses and I wanted the study to be focused on my eyes, not the glasses, and be able to see. 

Here is my first attempt at drawing my eyes. With this one I did the left eye first, then the right. It's very clear I learned some proportion and how to shade during the first eye since the second eye does not look nearly as flat and improperly shaped. 

I found it really interesting how different the change was between the first and second attempt. Since this was my first time drawing the same thing more than once, I haven't experienced this type of progression before. I think I'm going to continue drawing this view of the eyes for a few more times to improve. 

The hardest part for me was the sizing and shape of the eye. It wasn't until this practice I noticed I'd been drawing my pupils in self portraits way too small.

This practice helped me notice how detailed the eyes are, even when at rest. Eyes can bring the character out in a portrait and make the viewer more interested. This is similar to how the expressions of characters in stories help the reader understand them. It is possible my mind was a bit primed for drawing the personality behind the eyes because of me working on my character development for a story I'm working on. Or, perhaps that's a bit of a reach.

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