How to Sketch Eyes from Imagination

How to sketch eyes from imagination

Video by Vladimir London, a Life Drawing Academy tutor

In the Life Drawing Academy Correspondence Course, students get unlimited personal tutoring in 100 practical tasks. Rose, the course student, sculpted this model of eyes to draw it from life and made numerous sketches of eyes from life, memory and imagination. To help her with this topic, I will make a quick sketch and explain what to pay attention to when drawing eyes.

Eyes are essentially spheres. Here are two balls. If you know how to draw a sphere, it is easy to visualise how it catches the light. It always has light and shaded areas. I will quickly render the dark tonal values here. Even though the eyeball is white, it is never pure white; some part of it is always in shadow. This sketch will be in the three-quarters view. That is why the distance between eyeballs is smaller than the ball's diameter. You also need to make sure that two eyeballs have the same size. The horizontal line will help to place the eye corners on the same level.

The eyelids envelope the eyeballs. Although eyelids are thin, they have thickness. This thickness should be depicted in your drawing. The upper eyelid is slightly thicker and longer than the lower one. It overlaps the lower eyelid in the outer corner. The top edge of the upper eyelid is one-third from the inner corner; while the lower edge of the bottom eyelid is one-third from the outer corner.

In the three-quarters view, outlines of eyes are not a mirror image of each other. So, the one-third rule is not universal for every view. Once again, the upper eyelid is a bit thicker than the lower one and you need to imagine how they envelope the eyeball's spherical shape.

Because upper eyelids catch light from above, I will clean them up with an eraser. The thickness of upper eyelids is indicated here with short dark hatching. I do it schematically. It is not a realistic drawing, but a diagram. To indicate the lower eyelashes, I depict them as a single dark line. This is what the Old Masters did. If you want to make a doll illustration, you may draw individual eyelashes. In male portraits, this will instantly deny masculinity. I will schematically hatch the lower eyelids to show that the light hits them obliquely and they are in shadow.

To demonstrate the three-dimensional nature of eyeballs and eyelids, I draw virtual contours, which look like ovals. The contour of eyelids is not the same as the contour of the eyeball. You can see steps that suggest eyelids' thickness. This virtual contour is optional; I draw it for illustration purposes.

The upper eyelashes are also depicted as one dark line, not individual strokes for every eyelash. This outline is darker and bolder than the lower one because upper eyelashes are longer and there are more of them. When the light comes from above, there is always the casted shadow beneath the upper eyelids. It is important to depict it.

I will illustrate a direct gaze. When drawing irises of eyes, it is important to draw them equal in size and same shape; otherwise, eyes will look in different directions. The iris is not centered on the eyeball; its top edge is usually covered by the upper eyelid. The lower eyelid might touch the iris or even have a small gap. The pupil of the eye must be placed in the center of the iris; this makes it closer to the upper eyelid.

Because of tears, which act as lubricants for eyelids, the eye surface is always glossy. I will add white highlights to make eyes more realistic. The pupils are always black, they are the darkest spots in any portrait. The iris is not uniformly dark. Its top part is in shadow. It is also dark next to the highlight and iris' periphery. The area diametrically opposite to the highlight is usually slightly lighter than the rest; this gives translucency to the eye and makes the drawing more natural.

The area above the inner-third of the eye is concave. The area above the outer part is convex. The direction of pencil strokes should illustrate this difference. I will schematically outline the face edge and mark the eyebrows. Make sure that the paired facial features are on the same levels.

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