How to Draw a Realistic Eye

By request: how to draw a realistic eye with pencil, not paint! This tutorial is perfect for absolute beginners. In fact, when I was an art teacher, the first part is what I showed my beginning students (8th grade or older) on the first day of school. I like to think that this lesson convinced them that maybe they could actually draw an eye, and maybe art was sort of fun. The second part—where I guided them step-by-step through a realistic eye—came a day or two later, and by that time they were hooked.
And I hope you'll be hooked as well!

I haven't drawn like this in years, and it's made me want to do more. You've got to learn how to draw before you can paint (at least that's been my experience), so hopefully this will give you some confidence. Please let me know if you'd like to see more drawing tutorials along with the watercolors.

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http://www.imagekind.com/Cassidys-Eye...

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Painting details:
"Cassidy's Eye 2" is an 8"x10" pencil drawing on Academie sketch diary paper.

Pencils: Sanford Design Drawing 3800 series (HB, 2B); Kimberly (4H, 4B, 8B); Pedigree (2H); Sanford Design Ebony pencil, No.4 blending stump, brand unknown.
Eraser by Bic. Honestly, all of this stuff was just rolling around in an old art supply box.

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http://jerrysartarama.com
...and just about anywhere else.

Nail polish: Nicole by O.P.I. in Boys 'n' Berry. :)

Music: Groove Grove and Silver Blue Light by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

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Closed Caption:

everybody today by request I'm going to
draw not paint and I first we'll draw a
generic basic guy that will show you the
main features to look out for and then
i'll draw a realistic guy
it's actually the same I that i painted
in my first videos
so let's we started when you were a
child you probably drew is dots at one
point you realize that eyes were more
than just dots and maybe you decorated
them with big sticks for eyelashes and
that's about as far as you got
why don't you try this
first you'll draw the inside of the eye
and I always describe this as a football
or almond shape then the iris is a
circle that has been cut off by the top
and sometimes the bottom of the football
shape make it . where you think the
center of that whole circle would be and
draw a mini circle around it
this will be the pupil
next draw a skinny line that's parallel
to the bottom of the football shape
this is the water line and it's the same
color as the skin and it with a couple
of curves that will create the tear duct
then some people have this and some
don't
a visible crease between the eyelashes
and eyebrow
it's often kind of flat in the middle go
ahead and shade in the pupil
it's black so press down hard and make
it as dark as your pencil will go
sparkles make an eye look alive so draw
one or two abstract shapes somewhere on
the iris and then pretend the pupil is
the center of the Sun and draw some
light rays from the people to the edge
of the iris
these will act as guidelines as you
shade the iris use your pencil like a
crayon
press down lightly and shade around the
circle any gaps in your shading will
resemble natural highlights then I like
to make the outer edge of the IRS a
little darker
you can also shade the water line into
your deck
the whites of your eyes aren't
blindingly white so add a bit of gray in
the corners and under the top lid then
darken the top lid just a bit
eyelashes aren't straight lines they're
curved and the taper at the ends drawing
them is similar to making check marks or
the letter j most of your eyelashes grow
in the direction of your ears and away
from your nose so keep that in mind when
you draw them eyelashes in the center of
the iGrow straight up and the tiny ones
near the tear duct grow toward the nose
eyelashes grow at different rates so
have some small ones in with the long
ones
you'll note that i'm not extending them
past the crease very much
cross them over each other and tangle
them up and they look more like real
eyelashes this eyebrow has an arch so
relatively close to the crease draw a
line that goes uphill
until you get past the iris then go
downhill eyebrows are thicker near the
nose and taper to a point near the ear
each stroke he make with your pencil is
a hair in that eyebrow and draw them in
the direction they're growing some can
be outside the border shadows occur
around the crease and nose and under the
eye
so those are the basic ingredients
needed to make an eye
let's adapt them to an actual I
belonging to a girl named cassidy her
football shape is narrower and has a
long tier duct the top and bottom of her
iris have been cut off by her eyelids so
all I have to draw here are two curves
her pupil is small and she has a sizable
gap between her crease and the football
shape
she has a huge sparkle that looks like
clouds across the top of her iris
so I will outline that now it even
interferes with her pupil which i'm also
shading
I'm drawing some shading guidelines
where I see them on her eye and I'm
going around the iris with a light gray
her is a beautiful light green with a
jaggedy dark turquoise Rin
some darkness also radiates from her
pupil
i'm working with a blending stump to
soften the iris blending stumps are
rolled up paper and you can use them to
smooth and sort of grind your pencil
marks into the paper
you can also draw with the used blending
stump
this is an ebony pencil and it's about
as dark as you can get without using
charcoal
yeah
I'm adding some shading to the whites of
her eyes
this really is a great way to make an
ICM rounder and it will make that
sparkle pop later
I'm adding some details to the tear
ducts it seems like everybody's a
slightly different
Cassidy is looking at a sunset and it's
highlighting some of her lashes so
they're not black
I'm outlining those lashes and now I'll
work on the sparkle
it has some soft grey shapes here and
there and then you'll see the eyelashes
reflected upside down in it
yeah
after I established the main shapes and
do a little shading
I like to fine tune that work with my
ebony pencil and my blending stump
there's a second crease on the end of
her main crease and now i'm going to
shade around those highlighted lashes
there's no easy way to do this
unfortunately
yeah
I've just added some darkness to her top
lid and now i'm using the blending stump
to soften and unify the entire area
i love how it removes the graininess of
the ebony shading
the rest of her top lid is easier to
shade since there are no highlighted
lashes to deal with
I tried to draw the skin before I add
lashes and I also sketched in the
outline of her eyebrow the blending
stump brings it all together blending
stumps come in a variety of sizes and
most cost less than a dollar
I have links to all of my supplies below
he was one of my favorite shading tricks
use a cotton ball
I scribbled with my ebony pencil up in
the corner and I read my cotton ball in
it then I'm sweeping the cotton ball
over the light areas of her skin it's so
smooth and fast and you can just
scribble more pencil up there as you
needed it
yeah
you can also che directly onto the paper
with your pencil and use the cotton ball
as a jumbo blending stump as I've been
drawing this I've tried to keep my hand
from rubbing against the paper and
smudging my work
you can also put a blank piece of paper
over things that you've drawn to protect
them from your hand and now it's time to
fill in the eyebrow
Cassidy's is darkest near the center and
a little sparse her out by her ear
I've already put a skin tone down with a
cotton ball the hairs are growing at
about the same angle except for the ones
on the left side and I'm trying to make
a variety of lights and darks happen and
I'm asking some hairs together in dark
clumps
yeah
I'm starting to draw her lower lashes
and it's more comfortable for me to tilt
the paper a bit i'm sort of applying the
lashes from the edge of her water line
and easing up on the pressure as i
reached the tips again i like them to
cross over each other and have a variety
of lengths
yeah
yeah
yeah
yeah
yeah
I've just done some more cotton ball
work and now i'm using an eraser to pick
out a few highlights here and there i
love using my racer as a drawing tool
next in real time I'm drawing a few more
lashes out of that dark line you can see
how I have to go over them a couple of
times to get a solid black
yeah
yeah
and I've sped it up again to do the rest
of the top lashes and add some finishing
touches this i took an hour to draw and
I'm glad I had the chance to do this
demo
it's been years since I've done a pencil
drawing my husband jeff had no idea that
I could draw it like this and I think I
surprised him a little bit if you're a
beginner i hope you'll practice drawing
as many eyes as you can
yeah
and here's the finished I thanks a lot
for watching