Decorative Painting: 51 Tips for Painting Eyes (Part 2)

19. Highlight the whites of the eye for added interest. You can do this using a dab of straight white and just dab and dot it (not too much) on the lower outside section of the eye socket. You can put just a dot on the opposite side of the socket. This is another reason I never use white for the base coat. If you used white, you could not highlight it. You can also use a TINY speck of iris base color beside this highlight in
the whites of the eye.




20. Using a VERY, VERY light tiny float using the dark tone of skin tone color, float along the bottom of the whites of the eye. You almost do not want to be able to see it. This will help set them in.

21. Black/brown, a very dark brown is a better choice for outlining the lid of the eye, rather than using solid black. Black can be a bit overwhelming. There are only a couple of exceptions of certain skin types that would require straight black.

22. Don't enclose the entire eye with bold outlining. A LIGHT line on the bottom with a darker line across the top is enough. You might need to use two strokes across the top lid, using a med. wash.

23. You can gently emphasize the iris by painting a med. wash of your outline color under the iris, extending it a little on both sides.


Misalliance:

24. Put a tiny, pale smudge of red on the inside corner of the eye (as close as you can make it to toward the nose and still be inside the tear opening.) Give just a tiny hint of red on the opposite side of the corner of the socket as well.

25. You can also outline the bottom of the white of the eye to give the impression of blood in the eye. Use the lightest red wash possible, and paint a very thin float along the bottom of the eye, on the white right next to the bottom lid. If you do this too heavy or thick you'll make the person look like they've been on a bender. lol

26. On the recess of the lid, over the iris paint a very thin wash of a reddish color. This will help give depth.

27. Remember eyes are the window to the soul. Eyes are usually the first thing a person will notice and if they are done badly it will distract from the rest of the piece no matter how well the piece is finished.

28. Use a good talkon brush with excellent shape, bounce and snap. For outlining, use a liner in excellent
condition.

29. Nothing living is just one solid color. This also applies to irises so you can put entirely different colors in the iris and have it look real. Actually it will look more real if you do that rather than just using one
solid color.

30. One eye will always be harder to do than the other. If you are right- handed, the left will be the hardest eye. Do the hardest eye first.

31. Eyes do not have to exactly match each other in color, most (if not all) of us have a little variance of eye color in each eye.

32. I do not ever use white for the eye socket color. Hold a white piece of paper next to your eyes and look in the mirror. Eyeballs are not solid white. To me plain white looks stark and artificial.

33. A white eye socket will interfere with the highlights that you place on the pupil & iris. If you use white for the eye socket, then use white for highlights, the highlight color will not stand out as much as it should.

34. Use ivory, very lt. blue, very lt. gray etc. to base coat eye socket. ...depending on the skin type you are painting. Keep your coats smooth as you are base coating.

A larger eye iris:

35. Base coat (using a med. wash) a larger iris with a light color. Don't worry about putting in a smooth, solid base coat for the iris. Light and dark streaks will give it a more realistic look.

36. You can also add other colors on top of your dried first iris color. The colors can be entirely different. For example, say you used a light blue wash for your first color. You can then dab on a green wash of color dabbed here and there on top of that, followed by another color dabbed on the same way.
Just don't cover up all your previous colors. This really makes a beautiful iris.

37. The iris will almost always touch the top and bottom of the eye. It will touch more of the bottom than it will than at the top. But try to make the pupils as even as possible from side to side.

38. The tiny lines in the eyes are there to help the pupils contract and enlarge. You do not really need these in a tiny eye but they sure make a larger eye look better. Actually a large eye would be boring without lines. If you are going to put in these lines, do it before you put in the pupil.