The Eyes Have It!
Eyes...William Shakespeare said “The Eyes are the window to your soul”. I have found that I love painting eyes. Anytime that I work on a painting, I cannot wait to do the eyes. For me, the eyes give life to the painting and if I cannot get that right, then I might as well scrap the whole thing. The most enjoyable eyes to paint so far has been the eyes of the owl. If you look closely, you can see the reflection of the sky in the top portion of his eyes. Here is a link to that post https://art-for-arts-sake.com/2020/10/28/barn-owl-sketch-and-watercolor/ and here is the picture cropped to get a closer look:
I have sketched and painted birds, animals, buildings, etc, but not much of the human figure. It is nice to step out of one's comfort zone and try something new, so here we go!
I started sketching in November 2019. I hadn't picked up a sketch pad and pencil since I was a child and quickly became enthralled with the whole "creating something out of nothing" exercise. Here are a few of my first sketches involving faces. I started this adventure with Tom McPherson at Circle Line Art School. Links to his website can be found on my links page. Here a a few of my first attempts in graphite:
The sketch and painting of the eye was created on 140 lb cold pressed watercolor paper, 9 x 12 inches. Watercolors used were Burnt Umber, Cadmium Red, Cobalt Blue, Lamp Black, Naples Yellow, and Permanent Rose. I followed a tutorial by Louise Di Masi and the link to her page can be found in my links section. The reference photo used can be found on Pixabay and was taken by Sofie Zborilova https://pixabay.com/photos/eye-iris-macro-natural-girl-2340806/
Pixabay Reference Photo
Now, what shall I paint next?
Happy Monday everyone!
Helen