CASCADE - Creative Arts School for Children and Adults Deserving Excellence. Our objectives are to share ARTS, and democratize art education by providing free or affordable knowledge resource on this field.
If you want to learn how to draw faces and portraiture, one key to make it captivating and real is by drawing the eyes realistically or making it alive. The eyes are windows to our soul or emotions. Even through drawing, being able to draw a captivating eye can change the appearance and impact of your work.
When I started learning how to draw portraiture, I practiced a lot on the eyes of the subject. I experimented and finally, I learned how we can possibly draw alive looking eyes. There are several materials online to learn how to draw beautiful looking eyes. So I curated some here for different levels of learning.
Remember, you will not grow if you don't practice. So with these materials, I advise you get your tools and find a perfect place to start drawing.
Drawing Eyes for Beginners
The following video illustrates an easy way of drawing eyes starting from a circle. This video exhibits outlines and not much on shading. Thus, as a beginner, you'll be able to produce eyes that may lack details.
Advance Art Tutorial - Drawing hyper realistic eye
The next video takes longer but the end product is much better. This will teach you more details on shaping the eye and using the right amount of shading for pencil drawings.
As you have seen from the video, you need to layer the shading starting from light to darkest. To add more value and make it realistic, take notice of the highlights or how the artist lifted off some of the granite to reveal the white light. Always consider where the light falls in your drawing. Train your eyes to see the details of lighting.
Painting Realistic Eye
You may now have the urge to learn how to add colors to your artwork. The following video is a time-lapse but would still give you idea on how to paint realistically looking eyes. The medium used in this video is oil paint. Oil paint doesn’t dry quickly and needs longer time to finish. If you are going to use oil paint, you need to be patient and don’t rush your work.
Take notice of the process. Different from using graphite, the artist started with dark background to build on the foundation of his painting. Then little by little he layered the lighter colors and used fine brushes to shape and add volume to his painting. The final touches uses tutanium white for highlights. He also uses clean dry brushes for softening parts that he wanted to blend. The good thing with oil paint is that you can blend colors well using linseed oil even after a day or two. The colors are brighter as well and blending is much easier compared to acrylic. When acrylic dries, you can no longer blend it. With acrylic, you have to work on wet-on-wet.
After watching these videos, it inspires me to start working on my art. I hope that through these materials, you are able to learn some tips on how you would work on your "Eyes".
Now here are other references related to this post:
In February 2021, I had the privilege to meet Mr. Norbing Villez, the founder of Let's Paint Group on FB via an online interview. It was only now that I found time to post his feature. One of his paintings, "Tampisaw Series" painting number 1has caught my attention. I asked him if I can buy it but not with outright payment because I can't afford it with my meager salary. And I was surprised that he agreed to let me pay on three (3) scheduled terms. Maybe because he saw how much I liked his work and that I am sincere with my promises to pay. Hahaha!
The "Tampisaw" series became successful. Maybe because he does it without the intent of selling. He just loves the subject, which is his daughter. His paintings were also featured in a book and he has produced more than five (5) paintings under this series.
Mr. Norbing may seem like an outgoing and fun-loving person. However, he appears to be very shy during the interview. He works abroad and stays there with his family. Painting is not his main source of income but his rest venue. He paints because it is close to his heart. He takes care of his family and exposes them to art as well. His wife, also once been a part of a women exhibit in the Philippines. Mr. Norbing is also an active member of ARTipolo group, where I am an active member as well.
This month's feature, I'll be sharing with you his interview. You'll find him very humble and very willing to share his talent with many aspiring artists. Watch it and find out what I mean. For now, it is in Filipino. I will find time to translate it into English. Just click on the video below to view.
Thank you for watching the video. Now here are some of his works and tips on how we can improve on our work. If you want to learn his skills in doing pastel painting, he shared on his FB account some snips or video clips of his works.
The clips below are posted on his account. Click on the image so that you can view how he finished this Koi painting.
This photo shows how he started painting the Koi.
I mentioned earlier about his work being featured on a book. Here's the screenshot of his feature.
Check out this step-by-step photos on how he worked on Pebble Picking painting.
He made a sketch of the sitting girl. Moving forward, he worked on the fine details of the central subject, moving-out to the background and fine details to complete the entire piece.
Click on this clip to see how he worked on the painting's details.
And here's how he worked on his "Tampisaw S6".
Follow Mr. Norbing Villez at his FB Account NORBING VILLEZ.
Hello! Thank you for reading my blog. I am Rose Gob, a Knowledge Management expert, a seasoned HR and OD practitioner, an artist and an educator by heart. I have created three (3) blogs to share articles in the field of creative arts, cooperative, social enterprise industry. But among these blogs, I write more for my art blog, www.cascadeartstudio.com. During the pandemic, I was able to populate my blogs with various topics. But now, I realized that I need to focus. I hope you will give me feedback for topics that you want to learn. Send me questions and I'll try my best to answer your questions. Again, thank you for reading and please do check my blogs often. Have a great day!
