Amarpreet Singh: Drawing a Eye

In my last Blog post I tried my hand at drawing for the first time. It wasn’t very impressive with the lopsided shading and the missing details. This time I thought I would try to add more details to my drawings. That’s why I chose to draw an eye. My book, "How to Draw Cool Stuff: Basics, Shading, Texture, Pattern and Optical Illusions" by Catherine V. Holmes, has a very detailed guide to drawing a simple yet very detailed eye.

First the author suggests you draw “an outline shaped like an almond, making the inner corner lower than the outer corner.” (Holmes 65) This technique of drawing and almond-shaped outline is great since it shows how easy it is to start the drawing.

 

After I drew the outline I drew the inner circle. Which wasn’t that hard, but I still need to practice free-handing circles to better my drawing skills.

 

Then I drew the pupil and the highlight. The author suggested to “draw the highlight first to extend the pupil off.” (Holmes 65)

 

I continued by filling in the pupil of the eye as dark as I could, the author suggested this as it shows adds more detail by putting the highlight above.

 

Drawing the eyelids and putting on a few lashes was the easiest part of this. Drawing little bits of lashes lets you go back to it later to add gender to the eyelashes. “The male eyelashes have lighter eyebrows while the female eyebrows have darker and taller eyebrows.” (Holmes 65)

 

I darkened the inner circle along with the outline of eye. Continuing by drawing lines into the pupil extending from the inner circle.

 

Then I shaded in the outer edge of the inner circle along with the pupil darker as I went on. It was suggested to add more lines to add more depth as well.

 

I drew darker and taller eyelashes for a female eye.

 

Now came the hard part. The shading of the eye. The author suggested to smudge the pencil shade with your finger but instead I swirled my pencil lightly over the parts I wanted to shade in a circle. It worked pretty well.

 

Tell me what you think of my second drawing and feel free to leave tips.
Have you ever drawn an eye? It was an interesting and surprisingly quite easy experience for me.