Learning Project: Drawing Eyes

So, this week I decided to focus on eyes. I watched two videos, the first video was from a YouTube channel called RapidFireArt, it super detailed and explained why they did each step, which was super helpful, however I found it to be past my skill level. I did use some of the techniques from the first video but found a second video from a YouTube channel called Farjana Drawing Academy that did it a simpler way and was more at my skill level. The biggest challenge was doing the shading and the eyelashes, the first video explained how to shade with just a mechanical pencil, however the second video explained how to do it with a q-tip, I found doing it with the q-tip was much easier to make it smooth, and the strokes much less visible.

So, what I ended up liking the best was doing the main outline with construction lines, I found it was easier to control what the eye looked like (how much it slanted, the overall shape etc.) For the shading I used the q-tip method, I found it too difficult to just shade with a pencil, because I couldn’t get the strokes thick enough or close enough together to make it look natural. It was also difficult to shade/blend the places that needed to be blended while keeping the places that needed to be defined, defined. I found that the lines stayed more defined if I used a #2 pencil instead of a mechanical pencil. I’m overall happy with the way the last eye turned out, the only thing I would like to be a bit better was the eyelashes. I still have not mastered the technique for the eyelashes, but one thing I noticed was that I was putting too much pressure through each stroke, which made them too thick at the end where it should’ve been more of a point. Overall I am happy with the way they turned out.