How To Draw an Eye

1. Before drawing eyes, I observe photos of eyes so I know how to properly shade it. This is particularly good if (for example) you're trying to draw an Asian eye and you've never been very familiar with them.
2. If you want, find reference (this is advisable if you are trying to draw a celebrity. You will need a photo of their eyes).
3. Lightly sketch out the outline of an eye. I did mine with a HB pencil, but you can use lighter than that.
4. Shade in the pupil with a 6b or darker pencil. I shaded mine with a 5b because I lost my 6b. 
5. Lightly shade in the iris. 
6. The iris isn't all just one colour. Add some
   darker parts and lighter parts. 
7. I sometimes add a shadow around the iris. Now, because the eyeball is curved it isn't going to be completely white so you need to add some shadows lightly. Shade in the eyelid. 
8. Eyelashes are easy to draw. Don't draw them straight, they'll look fake. You need to draw them slightly curved and wispy. And they don't all go in the same direction!
9. Draw the bottom eyelashes. Don't make them thick and long because it'll look slightly weird. 
10. Finally, shade around the eye and you're finished!

This isn't for a realistic eye. This is how I draw eyes.

How to keep an Art Book

I have had many sketchbooks that I have simply lost interest in. I just wasn't motivated to keep creating artwork in them. Then once I was in Asda (a British supermarket) and I saw a sketchbook. You know those Moleskine books, the plain ones that you can draw and paint in? Well there was a cheaper knock off that they were selling. A6 for £2, A5 for £3 and A4 for £4. I brought the A4 one and decided to start an 'Art Journal/Art Book'. The paper was thin- I think it was 90gsm (it did not handle watercolour well at all and most markers bled through) and all I did basically was do anything art related. They were not rough sketches- they were final pieces of art work. Most of them had writing- maybe a drawing of my pets and a few lines on what their names are and so on. Some pages I printed off photographs off the Internet of, for example, places I want to visit and I would do a page on that. It's visual! My Art Books are all about being visual. 

So how do you keep one? 

1. Find a good sketchbook. Plain pages are recommended but if you want lined paper then use it! You should get a sketchbook with thick paper so it can handle all mediums. My second art journal is an A4 casebound sketchbook (If I want to stick on a full A4 page it'll be easier if there aren't spirals), 170gsm with perforated pages which are good if I want to rip out a page (my last Art Book is falling apart because I ripped out so many pages). Markers don't bleed on at all and the paper handles watercolour well. 
2. If you want to decorate the front cover. I've decided to keep mine simple- I got a scrap piece of paper, painted it with bright colours and wrote down 'Art Journal' and wrote my name. I stuck it down with tap and stuck on a few stickers. It's bright, colourful and not too much. If you want to just keep the cover blank- it's what I did for a while!
3. If you want to, do a front page welcoming people to the Art Book. I just put down my name,  a few things about me and my address if it gets lost. I also drew a little picture of me. You could also decorate the inside front cover, if it is blank.
4. Now do anything you want as long as it is visual. Do any type of art- you could do a few rough sketches, a very detailed final portrait of a friend, a scrapbook type page documenting a recent holiday- anything! Put the date on top so you know when you did it and if you want to, add page numbers- try maybe doing this when you finish it so if you decide to rip out a page and you've already numbered all the pages, the number order will not be right. Maybe do a page on what your artistic inspirations are- I love doing that! 
5. Remember to have fun. Don't make it a chore unless you have a deadline. Your Art Book should be fun to do and it shouldn't be a pain in the bum to have to get up everyday to do it. 

Express Yourself

So today, in my art journal, I drew this. I was just feeling in a doodley, colourful mood AND I really needed a profile picture for this blog so I drew this with felt tips. I scanned it into my potuter and tweaked it a little bit. 

Tangled

I love the Disney movie Tangled. Not just for its plot and funny jokes but for its beautiful artwork and animation. It must have been so hard to animate Rapunzel’s 70 foot hair and I admire Disney for that.

So that’s why, for my first post, I’m posting an art work! Not just one, but two versions of an art work.

Here is the original Tangled art work which I did in my Art Journal.  It took me about 40 minutes to draw and ink the sketch and around 20-30 minutes to colour with watercolour pencils which doesn’t seem like much but it was really hard to get the positioning right. I am not satisfied with how their faces look but it’s better than nothing.

Below the original is the digital version. So which one do you prefer? I prefer the digital.