How to Paint Eyes - The Biggest Mistake Artists Make

hello everyone Alex javares here I'm finally back with the video I know you've all been waiting for on how to paint eyes and I'm also going to be talking about the biggest mistake people make When painting them unlike other videos I'm not just going to be showing you how to paint one eye on its own because painting a single eye is a lot more straightforward than painting both eyes together by far the most challenging thing about painting eyes is making sure they're aligned correctly if we look closely at this painting by the old Master Giuseppe de Ribera notice how the angle of the eyes is different from the angle of the eyebrows so the right eye appears to be floating down to the right and in this painting by friends house look how the angle of the inside corners of the eyes is different from the angle of the eyebrows so crooked eyes are a really common mistake that even the greatest painters make and that's not the only thing you can get wrong the eyes can either be too far apart or too close together and you can make one eye bigger than the other for me personally I find placing both eyes correctly the most difficult thing to do when portrait painting but in this video I'm going to show you everything I do and the anatomical landmarks I look out for to make sure I've placed the eyes accurately I'm not saying my method is entirely foolproof but if you remember to check all the things I'm about to show you next time you have to paint someone's eyes it will certainly help you to avoid making these really common mistakes my model for this demo is Rosie who I chose because of her big green eyes I'm starting off by mapping out Rosie's head on the canvas using a few simple lines here I'm placing a horizontal Center Line to indicate the position of the eyes and here is another horizontal line for the eyebrows unlike the lines for the eyes and the eyebrows in the two paintings I just showed you notice how these lines are parallel with each other unless someone has a raised eyebrow the tilt of the eyes and the brow line should always be parallel I'm actually going to be painting over these initial lines but I'm still indicating the Tilt and position of the eyes because it helps me visualize them and they're a really important Landmark that I'll keep coming back to throughout the portrait once I've placed the head and shoulders on the canvas I'm then going to mass in the larger shapes that make up my subject with color the hair the background the main areas of light on the front planes of the face and shoulders and the shadow that runs down the side of the face and under the neck if you'd like to know more about how this was painted like the colors I used and how I mixed them this is the latest portrait in my ala Prima portrait painting course and part one of the full length version filmed in real time is available to watch over on my patreon channel now that I've finished massing in the larger shapes I'm going to start mapping out the features and once again you can see I'm placing the horizontal center lines for the eyes and the eyebrows next I'm placing a vertical Center Line that runs down through the bridge of the nose and the middle of the mouth and here I'm indicating the bottom of the nose about halfway down between the eyebrows and the bottom of the chin the brush I'm using to place these lines is a small soft head synthetic brush and I'm using the same color I used for the Shadows the softer hairs allow me to place the darker color over the light without them mixing together so much now I'm placing the really bright highlight right in the middle of Rosie's forehead once I've placed this large highlight I'm going to measure the short distance down to the small highlight on the bridge of the nose and I'm scratching it out with the back of my brush this highlight on the bridge of the nose is a really important landmark and as you will see it's the key to helping me place the eyes accurately from the highlights on the bridge of the nose I then work my way down and across to the inside corners of the eyes paying really close attention to the Angles and the short distances between them when the eye sockets are in Shadow the inside Corners usually appear as small highlights which I will first scratch out with the back of my brush then paint in later on but here because the eyes aren't in Shadow I've decided to draw the eyeball within the left eye socket as you can see the eyeball runs from the inside corner of the eye along the bottom edge of the lower eyelid around the top of the upper eyelid and back towards the inside corner it's really useful to visualize the eyeballs within the sockets as this will help you determine the shape of the eyelids and the position of the iris I'm now placing the eyebrow above the left eye and here I'm placing a vertical Center Line which runs through the iris this line represents the middle of the eyeball and because Rosie is looking towards the left notice how it's closer to the left now I'm placing the inside corner of the right eye making sure it's the correct distance from the small highlight on the bridge of the nose next I'm indicating the edge of the Shadow just to the right of the small highlight so I'm starting to think about the width of the light shape just above the bridge of the nose between the two eyebrows this is another really important Landmark which is referred to as the Keystone area as it has a similar shape to the Keystone at the top of an arch I will usually try to lock into this area fairly early on as it's right in the middle of the face and once I've made sure it's the correct height and width I can then use it to measure the distances out towards the rest of the eyes here I'm placing the eyeball within the right socket I need to be really careful to make sure it has the same height as the left eyeball also notice how it's slightly higher than the left eyeball so that if I were to draw lines between the top and bottom of each eyeball they would be parallel with my horizontal center lines after placing the right eyeball I'm painting a shadow down its right side remember the eyeballs are 3D and just like the head itself it has a front plane and a side plane and here on the right eyeball the side plane is in Shadow I'm now placing the shadow just to the right of the bridge of the nose next I'm using some of the Shadow color to place the left Iris right on top of my vertical Center Line that runs down the middle of the eyeball and here I'm placing the right Iris again just like with the eyeballs notice how the right iris is raised slightly higher than the left and if I were to draw a line between them once again it would be parallel with my horizontal center lines this is really important each and every time I place any features that appear on both sides of the face like the eyes the eyebrows the nostrils or the corners of the mouth they must all have the same tilt and be parallel with each other once I've blocked in the shadows around the eyes I'm blocking in the shadow that runs down the side of the nose and the whole of the mouth area from the top of the upper lip all the way down to the bottom of the Shadow under the lower lip after the shadows I'm painting in the highlights as well as the highlights on the bridge and the tip of the nose I'm placing a small highlight just above the middle of the upper lip and another on the chin I'm then going to add the middle values in between the lights and the shadows in order to start modeling the form once the main values have been added the blocking stage of this portrait is complete and even though everything is still quite rough you can see that the features are already aligned with each other and parallel with the horizontal center lines I placed at the start from here I'm going to start refining the features and because their alignment has already been established each time I add any smaller shapes and details I will keep checking to see that they're aligned with this blocking I'm going to begin refining in the area above the bridge of the nose rounding the form by placing a middle value along the edge of the Shadow just to the right of the Keystone area from the Keystone I'm then working the short distance across to the tear duct on the inside corner of the right eye next I'm using the back of my brush to scratch out two small highlights that I see immediately adjacent to the tear duct here I'm placing the topmost part of the eyelash on the right eye and I'm carefully checking to see how it lines up horizontally with the Highlight on the bridge of the nose I'm then painting in the rest of the eyelash as it curves around to the right at this stage I'm still only using my shadow color and I'll go in with the darker color once I'm certain I have the eyelash placed accurately here I'm placing the shadow on the underside of the upper eyelid as it Curves in towards the tear duct this is another situation when it's really useful to think about the eyeball as you visualize how the eyelids curve around its surface once I'm happy that the tear duct is in the right place I'm measuring the short distance across to the inside of the iris so when I paint the eyes I essentially work outwards from the bridge of the nose and I measure each short distance to the tear duct then the inside white of the eye and then out to the iris once I'm happy that it's been placed accurately I'm now mixing a color for the iris I'm using raw Umber ultramarine and white to mix a cool gray color although this gray is fairly dark look how much lighter and greener it appears when placed on the canvas we normally associate blue and green eyes with being light but while they're lighter than brown eyes their irises are actually darker than we think a really common mistake beginners make is to paint the irises with bright blue or bright green when they're actually much darker and more neutral I'm now working across from the iris further towards the right side of the eye and I'm scratching out a small highlight that I see on the top of the lower eyelid I'm then carving out the lower edge of this highlight with some of the Shadow color and from there I'm going to refine the edges of the Shadows around the eye and the eyebrow so I've now placed the iris of the right eye and I've scratched out the main highlights on the surrounding eyelids and I reckon they're all fairly accurate but before painting them in or adding any more details to the right eye I'm starting work on the left eye and I'm going to make sure the left iris is placed accurately here I'm painting a warm mid-tone that I see in the inside corner of the left eye so once again I'm working from the inside corner outwards towards the iris I'm then using the same warm mid-tone for the lower eyelid of the left eye and I'm carefully checking to see that its bottom Edge aligns correctly with the bottom edge of the lower eyelid of the right eye I'm now double checking the light shape on the upper eyelid of the right eye making sure that it still lines up horizontally with the Highlight on the bridge of the nose once I'm happy with the placement of this light shape above the right eye I'm then working across and placing a small highlight on the upper eyelid of the left eye and here I'm checking the angle of the Tilt from one small light shape to the other making sure that they're parallel with the horizontal Center Line I placed at the start now I'm indicating the upper eyelash of the left eye and just like with the highlights on the upper eyelids these also need to be parallel with the tilt of my horizontal Center Line here I'm mixing another cool gray color this time making it lighter than the color I used for the irises I'm going to use this color to paint the whites of the eyes despite me referring to them as white the whites of the eyes aren't actually white they're usually a cool gray mid-tone another mistake beginners always make is to paint them white or certainly make them much lighter than they really are so remember the whites of the eyes are often the same value as the surrounding flesh but they're cooler in color I'm now taking some of the darker gray that I used for the iris and I'm using it to place the iris in the left eye after placing it I'm once again checking its alignment with the right eye and it looks to me like it's a little too low so here I'm raising the left eye slightly starting with the top of the left eyelash in order to check the alignment of the eyes I'd like to point out that I'm not comparing them with the exact position of the model instead I keep referring back to the alignment of the horizontal center line that I established at the start during the blocking this is really important when you're working from life because your subject is never going to remain completely still so the alignment of their features is going to be continually changing slightly and this is the reason artists make the features crooked because they paint them as they appear at the time and they forget to check that they're still aligned with all the other features the way you avoid this mistake is to determine the position of the head during the blocking at the start then as you add the features you need to maintain that position making sure they remain aligned with the blocking and each other instead of continually chasing the position of the model after raising the left eye a little I'm then using the back of my brush to scratch out the highlights on top of the lower eyelid once again I'm making sure that it's aligned correctly with the Highlight on top of the lower eyelid of the right eye every time I place the detail in the eyes I don't just look at one eye independently from the other I always check to see if it's aligned correctly with the corresponding detail in the other eye and I make sure that the Tilt from one detail to the other is parallel with the horizontal center lines I established at the start here I'm adjusting the left eyelash and here I'm adjusting the eyebrows I'm now fairly certain I have both eyes placed correctly and aligned with each other so that's the really difficult part completed next I'm ready to start adding the details to the eyes here I'm using one of my small round Sable brushes to place the white on the inside of the right eye now I'm mixing a warm dark red color which I'm using to place a warm dark accent that I see in the tear duct of the right eye I'm then painting in some of the small light shapes on the upper eyelid that I scratched out earlier with the back of my brush next I'm placing a small dark accent in the crease just above the upper eyelid of the right eye the brush I'm using here is a small soft head synthetic Brush by Rose moonco called an eclipse coma it has longer hairs which enable me to paint this really fine line right here I'm mixing a really dark violet black color made with ultramarine blue alizarin crimson and transparent oxide red which I'm going to use to apply the dark eye makeup to Rosie's upper eyelids I'm now mixing an even darker version of the cool gray color that I used for the irises and I'm placing this darker color around the outsides of the irises because with lighter colored eyes the rim around the outsides of the irises always appears darker but the irises do not appear equally hard all the way around their edges so I'm only placing this darker color where the edges are more clearly visible if you leave them too hard all the way around their edges the irises will look cut out and they won't appear realistic so they will usually need softening just a little in a few places like I am here on the inside of the left Iris here I'm placing a few more small dark shapes near the tops of the irises which are essentially Shadows being cast by the upper eyelids next I'm taking more of the dark color that I used for the eye makeup and I'm using it to place the pupil in the right eye I'm then going to place the pupil in the left eye and just like with every other small detail I need to make sure that they're aligned correctly with each other so that the angle from one to the other is parallel with the angle of the horizontal center lines are established at the start but I reckon I've made the pupils a little too large so here I'm adjusting them with some of the gray color that I used for the irises I'm now mixing a lighter version of this gray and I'm also adding some Viridian which I'm using to place the Highlight in the right eye you must never paint the highlights in the eyes with pure white paint they may look really bright because they're right next to the dark pupils but they'll always be a little darker than pure white that being said the Highlight in the right eye could be a little brighter so here I'm mixing in a little more white the highlights in the eyes will also have some slight color in them usually blue or green in cool light or yellow in warm here I'm adjusting the pupil in the left eye once again making absolutely certain it's aligned correctly with the pupil in the right eye I'm then using the back of my brush to scratch out the small highlight in the left eye and I think that will do for the left highlight as the highlights in the eyes will never be exactly the same one will always appear a little brighter than the other thing you need to be careful of is making the highlights in the eyes too big just like we can make them brighter than they really are we also tend to make them bigger here I'm mixing a warm pink highlight color which I'm using for the Highlight on top of the lower eyelid of the right eye I'm now mixing a warm Dark Shadow color which I'm going to use to paint the cast Shadow made by the eyelashes of the right eye next I'm using a small soft head brush to paint the eyelashes on the left eye and here I'm just softening The Edge at the top of the left eyebrow I'm now placing a small highlight on the upper eyelid just above the right Iris and here I'm placing another highlight on the lower eyelid just below the right Iris notice how the Highlight on the upper eyelid the Highlight in the eye and the Highlight on the lower eyelid appear in a line with one directly above the other this is the same position as the vertical line that I drew at the start for the center of the eyeball the reason all three of these highlights appear along the central line is because this is the part of the eyeball that's closest to the light source so this is where it's catching the light I'm now placing a small highlight on the inside corner of the left eye this is another important Landmark that you always need to check is aligned correctly with the opposite eye and it's actually one of the easiest to check because the inside corners of the eyes are so close together artists quite often forget and make them crooked even when the rest of the eyes are aligned correctly but because I always work outwards from the bridge of the nose the alignment of the inside Corners is one of the first things I look for when painting the eyes after completing the eyes I'll start work on the rest of the features once again remembering to maintain the alignment that I established during the blocking I'll check to see that the nose and mouth remain aligned with the eyes instead of continually chasing the ever-changing position of the model so there it is my video on how to paint both eyes together I hope that was helpful remember if you want to see how the rest of this portrait was painted part one of the full length version is available to watch over on my patreon channel thank you for watching and until next time good luck with your painting

Channel: SIMPLIFY Drawing and Painting

Views: 492,358

Keywords: how to paint, how to paint eyes, portrait painting tutorial, realistic eye, art mistakes, common art mistakes, alex tzavaras, alex tzavaras portrait demo, worst art mistakes, portrait painting, portrait painting demonstration, oil painting tutorial, oil painting portrait, oil painting techniques, oil painting portrait tutorial, how to paint facial features, art mistakes to avoid, artistic anatomy, painting the eyes in oil, paint realistic eyes

Id: YtsEOXmqm1k

Length: 27min 8sec (1628 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 16 2022