Haylie's Eyes - Just Eyes
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As portrait artists, we all love eyes, don’t we? As a grandmother I admit that I’m totally entranced by the eyes of my granddaughter Haylie. One morning in the spring of 2009, Haylie was lying on my kitchen floor and (noticing the amazing play of sunlight across her face), I grabbed my camera and shot this photo. Later wanting to paint her from this photo, I accidentally cropped the photo to this closeup of her face and instantly this portrait became all about those amazing EYES! (Compare the two photos below and notice what a huge difference the crop makes in the impact of her eyes.)
Uncropped Original Photo:
Cropped Study Photo:
There are three necessary ingredients for capturing a portrait likeness:
1. Accuracy of definite lines and spaces.
2. Accuracy of the shadow shapes
3. Accuracy of the values
I’m going to display below photos of each successive painting to completion (with the study photo at both the top and the bottom for easy comparison of study to first fire and study to final portrait) This will create a short version (visual lesson) for those who prefer an abbreviated lesson. For those of you who wish to follow along with my step by step narrative (long version), please continue reading the text below the photos.
Study Photo:
1st Painting:
2nd Painting:
3rd Painting:
4th Painting:
Completed Painting:
Study Photo for Comparison:
Accuracy of definite lines and spaces:
I traced from my study photo just as carefully as I possibly could. But I also used my calipers to confirm the accuracy of certain key areas (I also compared photo and painting under a grid):
1. The distance across the bridge of the nose (from tearduct to tearduct)
2. The distance from the outer corner of the eye to the edge of the face.
3. The width and height of each portion of the eye (total width from outer corner to inner tearduct, width and height of each area of white, width of iris at the eyelid line, width of iris at its widest middle point, size of pupil, etc.)
4. The distance between the upper eyelash line and the eyelid crease (and overall shape of lines).
5. The distance between the eyelid crease and the eyebrows.
6. The length and shape of the eyebrows.
Iris’s:
Shape: Notice that the top portion of each iris is hidden beneath the upper eyelid, but the bottom of the iris is fully visible (just skimming the lower eyelid).
Color: Haylie’s eyes are categorized as “blue” however, I find it impossible to declare them one single color. Her eyes have flecks and casts of tans and greens as well as dark blue gray. I wanted to attempt to recreate that subtle coloration in my portrait.
1st Painting: I decided to begin by painting the iris with a light blue. In this case, I chose to paint the black pupil on the first painting and to outline the perimeter of the iris. Then I wiped back to the white porcelain, pulling my strokes outward from the pupil (to allow me to add additional colors during my next fire painting). Finally, I made sure to wipe out 3 bright highlights on her right iris and an area of smudged highlight in the left iris.
First Painting:
Paintings 2 – Completion: Each painting I washed different colors over the iris as I thought appropriate. On the second painting I know that I used tan in certain areas close to the pupil and celadon over most of the rest. In the other fires, I just experimented with various color washes so I cannot tell you with certainty, but I know I used black green, dark blue gray, cobalt blue, and some brown. But regardless of what color I used I ALWAYS apply the paint with my brush in a bit of a wheel spoke motion. I paint overtop of the (fired) pupil and pull my brush from the pupil outward and around the perimeter. This gently creates that darker rim around the perimeter of the iris and also serves to shade the upper portions of the iris, which are realistically shaded by the upper lashes.
I ALWAYS pulled back some highlight areas from the pupil outward (revealing back to those previously-fired undercolors) And I always made sure to wipe out those brightest highlights in the right iris and retained a slight highlight in the 11 o’clock position of the left iris.
Accuracy of Shadow Shapes:
A person’s facial bone structure is revealed in a painting by means of accurate location and shapes of shadowed areas and highlight areas. The combination is what forms the facial contours of a painting. For example, the location of those shadows from the inner corner of each eye onto the nose will establish the width of the bridge of the nose. Take a minute and place your hands over your face and feel with your fingers that entire bony structure which forms your eye socket….feel the bridge of your nose and feel those slight recessed areas beneath the inner corners of your eyes (where you would paint the dark shadow lines beneath your eyes extending from your inner tearduct downward onto the cheek) Notice please how your eyebrow follows closely the bony structure of the top of the eye socket / forehead. Each person has her own unique bone structure, so accuracy with your shadow shapes and highlights are crucial to capturing likeness of that individual.
The accuracy of the shadow / highlight shapes around the eyes is every bit as crucial for likeness as the accuracy of the definite lines and spaces!
Accuracy of Values:
Shading the Whites of the Eyes:
One of the scariest things for most of us is shading the whites of the eyes in our portraits. However, adequate shading of the white of the eyes is SO important to achieving portrait realism! I frequently begin my shading on the very first fire; just a little bit of shading perhaps near the tearduct area (I might just gently extend a bit of the light red from the tearduct division out softly onto the white.) In this particular portrait, I wanted to be sure to capture the reflected highlight shapes, which were prominent in the outer whites of Haylie’s left eye. So, I shaded that area of white and then wiped out those bright highlight shapes and made sure I retained those areas of highlight in each successive fire. Those highlights are most apparent in the completed photo when that eye was washed into dark shadow.
I always move my brush as though I’m painting over the curvature of a ball, so my brushstrokes will curve from the light areas in the middle of the whites downward into the lower lid line or upward into the upper lash line. Thus my paint is gently extended along those lines, where the extra paint is useful. I typically use a 10/0 liner brush to apply paint when shading my whites and VERY light application of paint (remember you have multiple fires to bring up to complete value). Always rounded strokes…never straight lines! I typically add a touch of violet of iron to shade the inner and outer corners of each eye and I extend that violet of iron out softly along the lash lines. I think it enhances the realism.
Darkest and lightest values:
A most appealing factor of this photo for me was the play of the sunlight across Haylie’s face. Notice that the sunlight came from the right side of the photo and creates a bright highlight above her left eye (into the brow area) and notice (in contrast) just how dark the value of shadow over her left eye is? Creating the contrast of the darkest value shadow over her left eye with the bright highlight area above that eye was a very important key to achieving likeness in this portrait.
Did you also notice too the difference in COLOR of Haylie’s eyebrows within the highlight portion of her eyebrow (very light blonde) and the rest of her eyebrow (brown)?
Completed Painting:
Eyelashes:
Haylie (in reality) has very long thick dark eyelashes, but her upper lashes were barely visible in this photograph due to the perspective. We are actually looking through Haylie’s upper lashes (which are lightly shading the upper portion of her eyes). I decided the only real indication of upper eyelashes was a few dots along the upper eyelash line, so that is how I painted her portrait. However, she did have lower lashes visible, so I painted those very softly and subtly. Notice how important it was to retain the bare portion of her lower eyelid line (between her eyeball and the lash line). I waited until the 4th painting before painting in those lashes (it is easier to judge the degree of prominence you want to give those lashes once the rest of the painting has progressed to near finished values.)
Below are photos of my completed painting of Haylie as well as my study photo. My sweetest reward was when I recently had opportunity to show my painting to my now 2 year old Haylie “Who is this?” I asked. “Haylie!” she replied with a giggle. (She recognized herself!!)
Completed Portrait:
Study Portrait (for comparison):
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