Quick Tips for Painting Realistic Eyes

Follow along in the video as an alla prima painting of an eye comes to life. Use these concepts in your next portrait painting!

Tip #1: Tone the Canvas

For this particular painting, I toned the canvas with gray and mineral spirits in order to help the next layers of paint go on more smoothly and quickly. This is a time saver! Make sure to wipe off the excess, though, so that the surface isn't too slippery. 

Tip #2: Sketch the Composition Broadly

This means that you should *not* get too bogged down into detail or worrying about exact proportion. In order to create realism, you need some softness and you need to remain flexible. Filling in perfect shapes creates a coloring book or collage type of appearance.

Tip #3: Start Dark

As you begin filling in colors, begin with colors that lean a little dark and intense. If you begin too light, you make the process of building form more difficult because lighter areas and highlights won't have anything to contrast against. 

Tip #4: Build Form with Lights Before Details

Skipping ahead to details too soon can create a cartoonish look. Instead, focus on making things look round by building up those light colors. Include some variety in the hues of the light colors for more realism; Don't simply add white to the previous mixtures.

Tip #5: Adding Details

Try not to think in a linear way about details. Consider whether details, light the highlights in the eyes, are truly shapes like a circle or a line, or whether they are softer areas contrasted against a shape behind or adjacent to them. Notice how eyelashes, for example, are not parallel lines as we were taught as kids; They're really triangular tufts of hairs and we often don't see them individually.

Join a Portrait Painting Class

An in-person and virtual Portrait Painting in Oil class is starting soon: https://www.schoolofrealistart.com/portrait-painting-details 

MATERIALS USED IN THIS DEMO:

Trekell Block Panels: https://www.trekell.com/collections/blockpanels/products/raw-wood-block-panel-1-2-baltic-birch 
9 Pieces Artist Paint Brushes Nylon Filbert: https://amzn.to/3I5r6QA 
Daniel Smith Refined Linseed Oil: https://amzn.to/3lfSd1B 
Gamsol Odorless Mineral Spirits: https://amzn.to/3I52sQ5 
Rembrandt Cadmium Red Deep: https://amzn.to/3xWaTIM 
Rembrandt Cadmium Yellow: https://amzn.to/3GepbYa 
Rembrandt Cadmium Orange: https://amzn.to/31sfPcB 
Rembrandt Quinacridone Rose: https://amzn.to/3xVD3Uh 
Winsor & Newton Phthalo Turquoise: https://amzn.to/3xZ0yMo 
Winsor & Newton Ultramarine Blue: https://amzn.to/3ErSbeB 
Winsor & Newton Ivory Black: https://amzn.to/3dmECBm 
Gamblin Titanium White: https://amzn.to/3dkDjmf 
Gamblin 1980 Neutral Gray: https://amzn.to/3dJLxEJ 

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