Video:How to Draw Eyes

Transcript:How to Draw Eyes

Hi! I am Mark Keathley, America’s Artist. Today I'm going to show you how I draw an eye. So grab your favorite pencil or charcoal. I'm using a number 6B pencil and a sketchpad.

Study the Highlight in the Eye

One of the things about an eyelid, it's always wet. And so whenever you start to draw an eye, think about the highlight, and don't want to ever get anything on the highlight, because you wanted to be the brighter spot on the eye.

So I'm going to just start drawing an eyelid and everybody's eyes are a little different, so it's not real important on the overall shape, but I start with my shape here. Typically the iris is not totally exposed, it's under the lid a little bit. Some people have a little more of a bug-eyed look. First thing, right off the bat is I'm going to establish real lightly my highlight.I'm going to pretend that there is square window that this person is looking towards.

Draw the Eye's Pupil

The next thing I'm going to do is draw the pupil. The pupil is going to be dark, and I'm just going to fill it in as dark as I could possibly fill it in, careful though not to go over my highlight. And I am just using little circular motions here to fill that darkness in; I wanted to be as even as possible.

On most peoples eyes also there is a dark rim or ring out here on the iris and then different colors and strokes coming in. Eventually, I'm going to fill all this in solid, but I want some variations happening in there, so I did some dark lines to start with. Again, when I get to the spot, I'm going to be real careful not to get on the highlight.

Also you will notice if you look at a real eye that the iris is shaded on the top, just from the eyelid that will give a dimension to the eyelid. And then the wider the eye, it’s not really white, it's kind of a creamy yellowish color, but if I don't shade this in a little bit, then my highlight won't look as bright as I would like it to look.

Relate Parts of the Eye to the Drawing's Bright Spot

And of course, for all that to look right, then I should have to get the eyelid dark as well, everything relates from one thing. So my brightest spot is the highlight. My next brightest spot would be the white of the eye. So when you get to basics right, then the little details really make it come alive. That's how you draw an eye.