Drawing Tuneup - Eyes in Profile

The Drawing Fixit Shop!

This student's drawing shows the common fault in drawing eyes in profile, where the eye appears to be drawn from the front. Drawing eyes in profile is a tricky business, particularly because we spend so much time viewing people's eyes from the front, that the shape of the eye from the side looks rather strange to us, and our brain keeps trying to make us draw what we know to be true (the front view) rather than the shape we are actually looking at. The form of the eye is quite complex, and the slightest change of head position can also drastically affect how we draw it.

Here is the same drawing, corrected using a computer paint program.

If you are making a similar error in your drawing, you might like to

• read this article about drawing eyes
• drawing from life and photos, rather than from memory
• practice doing a whole page of eyes from all kinds of angles.
• when drawing from life, keep your head still and
• try closing your non-master eye if sitting close to the model.

~Helen South