Portrait Drawing Lessons:
Looking Through Rubens's Eyes

Portrait Drawing Lessons - How to Draw Eyes 1

Drawing a single expressive eye can, on some days, be challenge enough. Drawing a pair of eyes that work as a singular expressive unit present a whole set of issues that need to be addressed.

In this web-version of The Drawing EZine I will work from Ruben’s superb portrait painting of his young daughter Clara Serena.

The eyes of this precocious five-year old are, in my humble estimate, the finest eyes in European art. These eyes have a quirkiness to them that can look a bit weird at times. Yet they also have a magical, even hypnotic, pull. For study purposes young Clara’s eyes offer a multitude of lessons and challenges for both the intermediate and advanced artist. For the intermediate artist the lessons to be gained include a structural understanding of the planar forms of eye and plumbed alignments and focusing the gaze.

For the advanced artist there is an important lesson to be learned in line tension – this, to use a mouthful, is an architectonic tensing of a serpentine line, somewhat akin to tuning a piano wire. Rubens was the master bar none of this skill.

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Portrait Drawing Lessons - How to Draw Eyes 2

Eyes are not symmetrical. Each eye has its own unique shape and size. Quite often careful observation will reveal that one eye is larger than the other.

My first step was to accurately sketch in the shape of the eyebrows and then plumb downwards to establish pinpricks thus fixing the placement of both the inside and outside corners of the eyes (the nasal canthi, plural for Canthus).

Before proceeding further you will want to check and ascertain the accuracy of the distance between the eyes. In Clara Serena’s case the distance between the eyes is greater than the width of each eye.

Keep your pinpricks quite light so that only you can see them. My pinpricks are heavier for illustration purposes.

Once the nasal canthi were placed I took careful note of the angle to the temporal canthus (outside corner) of each eye. Rarely do the inner and outside canthi align horizontally; generally the outside canthus angles superiorly (upwards) from the inner canthus. Once in a while you will see a downward slope.

The upward lateral angles (red lines) of Clara Serena’s eyes are pronounced. Most eyes are not as pronounced as these. A more subtle relationship is the horizontal alignment of the left eye to the right eye. The right eye is slightly higher than the left and can be tricky to see.

When drawing the eyes we have a natural tendency to seek out symmetry and, as such, will, both consciously and unconsciously, ignore what we might think are distortions. Falling into this trap ultimately leads to banal and boring drawings. The magic found in Ruben’s portrait of Clara Serena is, in significant part, due to the surprising asymmetrical ‘distortion’. The more you study these eyes the weirder they become; but they also become more and more stunningly beautiful. If you can get a handle on drawing these eyes you will find your art taking a huge leap forward.

Once the canthi were fixed, sighted and verified I then articulated the upper opening of the eye.

Looking carefully at these eyes you should see that Rubens used straight architectonic lines to render the shape which is best observed just above the suggestive brush strokes for the upper eye lashes. I slightly exaggerated these subtle architectonic lines for effect.

As with the canthi carefully note the superior lateral angles.

In anatomy any term with superior means above or upwards. Lateral means to the outside and medial means to the inside or towards the middle.

Portrait Drawing Lessons - How to Draw Eyes 3

Using these terms allows for a more concise dialogue when discussing these innumerable forms. And, by the way, did I mention that the angle between the nasal (medial) canthus and the temporal (lateral) canthus is the bicanthal plane, which is a transveral plane linking both canthi. Now take a couple of aspirin with a warm Coke and go lie down.

Portrait Drawing Lessons - How to Draw Eyes 4

In studying Rubens’ painting I was struck by the exquisite line treatment in the crease of the upper eyelids.

More apparent on the left eye (our left) is an elegant serpentine architectonic tension. This is nigh impossible to describe but I will try: A serpentine line is an elegantly elongated ‘S’. Instead of drawing a serpentine line with arcs a tension can be created using short, straight lines to describe a curvature. Tension is created by opposing forces. Think of this tension as somewhat akin to tuning a piano wire – it is delicate and precise. Moreover, it is an acquired sensibility to linear form.

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