Hi, I'm Lillian Gray and this is my drawing course.
In today's lesson, we're focusing on all the tricks of how to draw eyes.
Let's start by understanding the structure of the eye.
At the top, we've got the brow ridge.
We've got two eyelids, top, and bottom
and in the corner, we've got the tear duct.
Further, we have the iris and the pupil making the window of the soul.
The white of the eye is called the sclera.
There are lots of it difficult anatomical names and it's not important to know all the exact names.
It's just important that you understand the structure.
Also, think about that the eyeball is covered by the eyelids and the eyelids curve around the eyeball.
When we view the structure of the eye from the side, it's important to understand that the sensitive eye is protected by the brow ridge.
In the same way, the top eyelid protects the eyeball.
When looking at the eyeball from straight-on
please note the concentric circles. These circles are exactly parallel to each other.
When we only look at the iris and start moving the eye around,
looking to the left or the right, the more it moves away from the center,
the more it becomes an oval. When you simplify the eye
to its most basic shapes, it just becomes a circle and two triangles.
Remember, we are not drawing difficult things.
Simplify it down to just a circle and two triangles.
Once you have done so, look at the more complex triangles hiding in this shape.
What is the actual form?
Remember don't draw what you think you see
draw what you see.
If you are struggling to get your basic shapes in proportion,
a pro trick I use is looking at the negative space of the eye.
Draw the white of the eye and stop focusing on the iris and the pupil.
This is a great way to double-check that your basic shapes are in the correct proportions.
Once you have your basic shapes down
start looking at the planes surrounding the eye.
The top eyelid is usually divided into three planes.
The bottom eyelid is divided into two planes.
Whenever I have to construct planes I always imagine
that I have to reconstruct the object out of a cardboard box and what would that look like?
Once you understand the structure of your planes,
consider which plane the light would fall on the most
and which plane is bent away from the light. This really helps when shading your eyes.
We need to think of the eyeball as a sphere that we had to shade to depict the form.
In the same way, the white of the eye is never really white
because we need to indicate the shadows to give the feeling of the round sphere.
Another important shadow that plays a big role in the white
of the eye is the shadow that the top eyelid makes on top of the eyeball.
When drawing eyelashes group them together,
think of them as little triangles.
Try and avoid drawing every single strand on its own.
Quite quickly your eyes can look like doll eyes and not really real. One more thing to
be aware of is that usually, the highlight of the eye is on the darkest area of the iris.
There are always a few mistakes that I see students make when they draw the eyes.
Just tweaking these can really eliminate a lot of issues in your eye drawings.
A common mistake I often see is people tend to make the eyes way too big.
Remember five eyes equal the width of the head,
one eye needs to fit exactly in between two eyes when looking straight ahead.
Also, remember the concentric circles. It is impossible for your iris and your
pupil to not be parallel to each other when looking from the front.
When looking to the left or the right these ovals still stay in relation to each other.
The next thing, make sure that the gaze of both eyes is in the same direction.
A lot of times I see people where the gaze is not aligned and we are not chameleons.
The gaze needs to be fixed in the same direction.
We usually do this by having the highlights in the same place.
Another point to consider with eyes is often
seen in students' drawings of eyes and the person looks freaked out.
The big trick here is to let the iris touch the top of the eyelid.
As soon as the top of the eyelid touches the iris it starts looking relaxed.
When there is a space, the eyes start looking more fearful,
more shell-shocked, more like a rabbit in the headlights.
And that's not always what we wanted to communicate.
So please pay attention to that!
My biggest trick when drawing eyes are actually paying a lot
of attention to the skin around the eyes.
When we simplify eyes down to a comical cartoon line.
it is actually the eyelids that determine the emotion.
So let's see these are angry eyes, sad eyes. happy eyes, bored eyes.
And the only thing that has changed is the skin and the tilt of the eyelid.
When we really pay attention to the skin around the eyes,
we start looking at micro-expressions!
I believe there's more emotion in the person's
face with the skin around the eye than in the actual eye.
So just by moving a bottom eyelid up by a millimeter, it can really show tenderness.
Opening up the top eyelid just a little bit can show fear.
These micro little differences create a lot of change in the
expression and emotion that you want to capture.
So, this is what I want you guys to do now!
I want you to combine all the lessons we've learned so far.
I want you to break down your eye into the basic shapes
which are just a circle and two triangles.
After that, you're going to apply your shading lesson where we are going to be
adding the form, darker pencils, lighter pencils.
Then start adding textures. Is it old skin? Is it young skin? Is there blending?
What do you need to do to really communicate this?
And remember you can put your highlights back with your eraser.
I want you guys to go out and practice a few eyes.
You can draw from magazines, you can draw from photos that you find.
National Geographics are nice because they're not really photoshopped photos.
There is a wonderful website that has got reference photos for artists. that
are not copyrighted that you guys can follow.
Draw as many eyes as possible.
Refining everything you've learned now!
That's it for this lesson!
I will now be moving on to Noses.