I'm leading the new student art ministry at my church. Last night was our first meeting. I was nervous at first, but everything went well. I issued the first assignment, answered art-related questions, and did a lesson on the different kinds of pencils and how they work. It was pretty laid back, and we did free draw for the last half hour.
One of the questions that came up was, "How do you draw an eye?" For me, it's one of those things that I just sort of learned how to do at some point, but have never had to explain it to someone else before. I was trying to recall the various lessons I was taught, trying to figure out how to put it into words, not just come across like one of those "this is how I do it so watch me" tutorials. I want my students to understand what I'm teaching. And I want to understand what I'm teaching.
So, I looked online for some kind of tutorial on the artistic anatomy of the eye and how to draw it. I was sadly disappointed to find many of the "this is how I do it so watch me" tutorial videos, which all kind of sucked anyway. Ugh. I found plenty of scientific diagrams, but they didn't explain how to draw the eye. Obviously... they're scientific.
The diagrams were not unhelpful, but I did eventually realize I would have to revisit the anatomy of the eye on my own, and figure out a way to explain it in terms of drawing. I sought the help of my best anatomy book, The Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Stephen Rogers Peck. Every artist should have a copy! Between the book, the online diagrams, and my own artistic knowledge, I was able to get a new grasp on this small -yet complex and important- facial feature. I still have more research to do for next week's meeting, but I can assure you I am having a blast drawing like this again. It has been much too long.
