- First find yourself a model. It can be a a live model, but it might be easier to use a picture as a model for your first few drawings. Take careful note of the shape and layout of the eye. The entirety is basically an oval shape that contains two circles, the iris and the pupil. Study the features of every eye you draw and pay careful attention to the edge of the iris and how it contrasts with the white of the eye as well as the edge of the pupil and how it contrasts with the iris. Also observe that the surface of the eye is not flat but curved and study how the light reflects off the surface. These are key features in capturing an image of the eye.
- Start by making a light outline of the main features of the eye with your mechanical pencil. Think of this as your starting grid. It is a good idea to outline any strong areas of reflected light as well. Now start from the darkest parts and work towards the lightest.
The pupil will be first. Using your 6B pencil, darken the pupil area in lightly at first and then blend it with your tortillion. Add another layer over what you just shaded and blend it as well. Continue this process until you have a nice smooth dark pupil.
On a separate sheet of paper or to the side of your drawing make a dark swatch of graphite with your 4B pencil. Rub the tortillion on the swatch to get some graphite on it and use it to begin laying a light foundation for the iris. Try to lightly demarcate the outline of the iris. Now use the mechanical pencil to draw highlight lines within the iris. These are the darkest ares of the iris. Now use the mechanical pencil and the tortillion to shade around the pupil. Add shadows at the edges of the shading where you notice them on the picture. These shadows lend a great deal of contrast to the drawing.
Outline the entire iris with a 4B pencil. Use your eraser to create highlights in the iris. Just add a few. Now blend the iris. Use the mechanical pencil to darken the shadows on the iris and your eraser to lighten highlights. Use the same shading techniques to to shade the rest of the eye and you are done. - Using charcoal pencils employs many of the same shading techniques as mentioned above. However charcoal typically employs broader lines and more on-the-fly shading. When drawing with charcoal, try to imagine where you would shade with a tortillion and attempt to create that shading by varying the how hard you press down with the charcoal.
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