Painting a Loose Watercolor Eye

1. Intro: Hi, my name is Fiona the Pinto, and I'm a Scottish italian watercolor artist based in Rome. I love painting expressive portraits. And naturally the eyes are the feature that reveals most about one's thoughts and emotions. One state of mind. In this lesson, I will walk you through painting the eye in watercolor, which is something that can be quite challenging if you don't know which steps to take. So I'll do my best to help you along. 2. Materials: Let's jump right into what materials you're going to need. Well, of course, a large jar of water, a pallet to mix your paints. I love ceramic ones, but any dish will do your watercolors. Of course, I have loads, but even a small pilot or a few tubes will do paint brushes. My favorite is silver black velvet, number eight, but I also have a finer detail brush, especially for this project. Nh2 pencil and eraser. And if you own one or white gel pen, watercolor paper, I am using Winsor and Newton hot pressed 100% cotton, but makes sure whatever brand you're using that it's good quality. A scrap piece of paper to test your colors out, of course, kitchen paper, which I'm sure you will have in your house. 3. First Wet in Wet Layers: So this is the reference photo that I chose and I really like it because it's very blurred, especially around this area. And that will help us to remain expressive. And also the fact that it's in black and white will help us with gauging values and choosing our own collect. You will find the sketch, outline and the photo reference and everything else in the list of materials. So I'm mixing this very watery wash of madder lake, red light, burnt umber on something called flesh tint by Roman small. Now if you don't have that, you can use a Naples yellow. If you don't have Naples yellow, either, you can just go ahead and use something like yellow ocher or raw sienna. So the important thing here is to have quite a large brush and to make sure that your water to color racial isn't favor of the water. So it's like a puddle of paint basically. We are just going in and I'm using this is Skoda number ten brush. This is going to help me remain express it using a large brush, which will stop me from trying to go into details. I'm just laying that down all around the eyelid and the under eye and also bringing it up into the white of the eye. Because something that we've got to understand really early on is that the white of the eye is not light that are capillaries in it. There are shadows and we're just getting rid of it right off the bat. I am spreading that mixture all over r I. And I am using what is called the wet and wet technique, which basically means exactly what it sounds using wet paint on wet paper. So as you can see, I keep adding more of that mixture into certain areas. I am dotting it along the eyelid and just letting the water do the work for us. Letting the water allowed to spread the paint and to get this really expressive and beautiful Look. I'm not picking up some burnt umber and I'm just going to go right in late in the areas where there is naturally more redness around the eye. So on the lower outer corner of the eye, on the inside of the eye, up near the corner of the eyelid. And I am just putting it down where I see that there is more darkness in a reference image. And going over the crease of the upper eyelid to enhance the shadow. I'm using this dotting technique because our paper is still wet that you will see the adults can spread out by themselves. I'm also already flicking some paint on there because it kind of helps me get into that mindset where everything has to be loose and expressive. Have to fight myself trying to go towards more detail and more control. So this really helps me. I am going into the tear duct and I am dropping in for madder lake, red light, more and more, let's say concentrated mixture of that. And again, I'm dotting it along the lower rim of the eye and up in the eyelid, also in the inner corner, again using that dotting technique. And you can see me do that also. In the upper rim on the inside of the corner of the eye. I'm just pulling that paint along the crease of the eye trying to get intensity in that shadow area. And remember that it's important to keep your reference image nearby at all times, not for the colors in this case, because it's a black and white photo that to gauge values. So dark tones, mid tones, and tones. We need at least three tones in every painting. For it to look realistic. And using a clean brush to spread out the color and smooth out harsh edges where I don't want them to be going back in, just dropping some color into that tear duct. As you can see. As I just dropped the color in there, automatically spreads by itself. So it's really important to let the paint and water work together and create the magic of watercolor. Let them do the work for you. I go on dotting the paint along the lower edge of the sclera, which is the so-called white of the eyeball. And more of that more concentrated mixture in the tear duct again, because I really want it to stand out. And as you can see, we are already beginning to achieve that intensity. And this is beginning to look more like an eye. Just start to act more intuitively. I have no picked up some more of that mixture with more burnt umber in it and I'm dragging it along the crease of the eyelid to get more darkness in that area. Are wet and wet. On wet layers have been put down. And I will see you in the second part of our course. 4. Building Your Layers: So at this stage, don't worry if you see any bleeding into areas where you don't want the paint to be intentional part of painting wet and wet and remaining expressive, embrace those hard edges. So I've picked up some more of that burnt umber here and I'm just going into any darker areas that I can see in my reference photo. I cannot stress, stress enough how important it is to always have your reference image nearby. Because it really helps you to gauge and values and to be able to see where the light and shadow are. If you don't get these things right, this step right in a painting, then it's going to lose intensity and depth. So you need to build up layers with watercolor, everything dry so much later, we always end up with a diluted version compared to the one that we were expecting. So it's a matter to build up layers and build up layers that are thin. So to avoid other working your piece, you will want to make sure you are, as I said, building up layers that are thin and avoid using colors that are not too transparent. So if Martinez is a problem that you have, I would stray away from colors that are fighting them. Or if you decide to use them, then maybe you should just use one of them. Pair, piece. I've not picked up some cobalt teal and I'm going into the eyeball. Now if you don't have cobalt teal, anything like ultra marine or any other blue. We'll also do my paper is still quite down. It's not sopping wet anymore. If you find that your paper is too wet, then just go in and use your heat to your hairdryer and dry the paper so that you have more control. So basically I'm concentrating on this shadow area in the corner of the eye. Sweeping my brush across any edges that I want to be softer. And then I'm going into the eye with the same color will seem cobalt teal, which is quite a bright color. And I'm beginning to gently lay down the color inside the iris. This stage, I don't have much paint on my brush, much water on my brush. It's very just just slightly damp. I want to try and paint around the highlight at the top of the iris. Now, don't worry if by any chance you lose that because we will be able to bring it back with white gouache or white gel pen. So very gently, just by using the side of my brush. As I said, not very wet. It's lightly damped. Go in and carefully and just using a very thin layer of paint. So I'm going to go in with some sap green. You can see it here. I've picked up my shrinking palette, which is lovely, very old, but it's such good quality. And I love the sap green here. And I'm just going to bring that in, drop that into the cobalt teal that I had previously mixed. And they're going to drop it into the iris because obviously the iris never just one color. So we want to have a little bit of variety in there. And I'm checking if the paper is still wet enough to allow the paint to spread a little bit on its own. But it gives it. You can just help it along with your brush. And I just love how expressive this watercolor I is coming along and how soft and beautiful it is. And I hope that you are achieving the same softness and the same effect. I'm just going in with some burnt umber to deepen the shadow in the Iowa Lead in the crease of the eyelid. And as earlier, there's not much water on my brush, so the mix, mixture is more concentrated. And in watercolor, you always have to be aware of how much water you have on your brush. Because controlling delicate balance between painting water is really one of the biggest challenges of this technique. I've just picked up some madder lake red light and I'm going to go into that tear ducts and I'm just darkening it up a little bit. And mimics is slightly more watery at this stage. Here, I'm using a smaller brush, number six, and I'm mixing some violet with yellow ocher to obtain this shadow area. And I'm checking it on a scrap piece of watercolor paper to see if it's suitable for what they want to use it for. And then going into the corner of that eyeball again because I see darker shadow in my reference image there. And then just placing that shadow where I see it. Then I will also check for other shadow areas I can see in the reference image and use that same mixture to add intensity to them. This becomes a very intuitive process. At this stage, you have to just follow your instinct and follow your intuition and obviously follow your what you see visually as well. And I hope you're beginning to get a grip of things. If you're a beginner, don't feel too scared or worried. Because watercolor can be daunting when you're starting out, but it's just really a matter of practice. And as I often say, pushing through the ugly face because that happens so often in watercolor. I'm just going into the top of the iris as well to create some shadow. We very often do have a shadow at the top of the iris is cast by our eyelid and the eyelashes. And we want to be very careful at this stage to not go in with details that are too stiff. We need to preserve the softness of this painting. I'm not mixing some violet just over there on my palate to the right hand side. And then bringing that yeah, Again, using it like a shadow color, let's say I'm bringing it into the iris and around the eye. And as I was saying, it's very important right now not to go in with details that are too stiff. In the reference photo, there are some strands of her eyebrows are hairs and the eyebrows that are in focus. I'm still on the fence about that, whether to go in and enhance them. But it's really walking a thin line. Managing to keep the looseness because all it takes is adding a few stiff details and you've lost that expressiveness. So be very careful. I'm adding a shadow next to the pupil because there's one there. And I just also added one at the bottom of the iris as C1 in the reference photo. I'm going into those flying eyelashes, very likely. And if you look at the reference image, you will see that they are blurred. And the way we can achieve something like this is by picking up a really, really fine detail brush. I'm actually using a nail art brush for this. And the heart trouble trouble I was having with it was that it was really hardly picks up any paint at all. So I would suggest if you have a really, really fine brush to premix your color with with a larger brush and then pick up the paint with your smaller brush. So I'm using this brush and put very little pressure on it. And remember that the eyelashes are not straight. They were carved up the root and also they will cross over each other, kind of crisscrossing and just be very delicate while going into those eyelashes. I'm painting thumb in the inner corner of the eye as well. Remember, they are curved and sometimes adding too many eyelashes. As they say, less is more. And sometimes eyelashes can distract from the softness of a painting. So be very delicate. So just a little bit of a sneak peek into my messy workspace. So things are not all with aesthetically pleasing. So I'm mixing some English red and violet because I think that I need to intensify the area of the tear ducts and the area around the eye just been really no more intensity certain areas. And remember to always have your kitchen paper handy if you need to. Lift some color, just press it down firmly and lift. I'm working with that theme for column number six, brush and literally just going into anywhere, I think needs to tackling the root of the eyelashes and then going in with a clean, damp brush, smoothing out areas that need to be smoothed out. I've slightly sped up the video here, not too much, just slightly. So we can get through this step faster because I don't really have much to say at this point except for the fact that I use this mixture to reinforce factum shadow areas. And we have built up the layers. So we're now going to go into the next segment of our lesson. And I hope that you are enjoying it up till now. And I will need to in the next part of this course. 5. Adding Subtle Details: I'm still using that to Cal number six brush and I'm going into the root of the eyelashes using some of that madder lake red light. And I'm actually enhancing the shadow I can see in the corner, on the outside corner of the eyelid. I think can see that in my reference image. And also that slight line you can see in the reference image just below her eye. That is something that I like, I like to put in my paintings. And at the moment, you can actually mix anything that you find on your mixing tray as the palette for this painting is quite limited, just as long as you don't mix any of that cobalt teal, if that is what we're using for the iris. And by mixing these colors, you will also get a more cohesive palette. So what I'm doing is just going into all the areas where I see shadow. This is a very repetitive exercise in that way. But as with watercolor, that is just a matter of working with watercolor, you have to keep on intensify your layers and adding depth. And that is what I am doing. And just mixing some burnt umber there and going into the iris. I'm actually darkening up the area up at the top of the iris. And I'm bringing down because very often irises do have a darker circle around the, around them and darkening up the inside of the top of the iris as well. I usually go much darker than this, creating shadows in the iris, but I find that in this photo the transitions are much softer or they want to keep it that way. I'm slightly reinforcing that shadow at the bottom of the iris, which is the shape of an upturned triangle or a pyramid shape. So I'm getting that in there and going around the iris as I can detect some shadow in there. And then up at the top again. Now the area just above the iris, I want to make slightly darker because I'm picking up some indigo and then placing it around that highlight that I know that when I add the white gouache or white gel pen, if I decide to add it, then that will really make it pop. If the area around it is darker. Just working my way around the top of the iris with that indigo and belong with a more kind of watered version of it. And bringing it down very softly with a clean damp brush going into the inside of the iris as well. I'm bringing it down. And then just kind of creating those little lines. You can see around the edges of the iris as well. Using very delicate sweeping motions and not putting much pressure on your brush at all. So I'm now going into the eyebrows and as I said earlier, I am not sure or I wasn't sure yet, whether to make them as to make some of the strands and then stand out as they do in the photograph. So a trick is, in this case, I mixed burnt umber with violet. And in this case the trick is to go in with a color that is pretty light. As you can see, that is quite watered down. It's not a very dark color. And it's almost as though you are laying down a sketch, an idea. And then if you like it, you can always go in later on and reinforce those headers and make them darker. Or maybe just reinforce some of them and leave some of them lighter. Which reflects what we actually see in real life because obviously some strands of hair will pick up more light than others. So that is what I'm going, what I'm doing here, just going in very lightly and going in filling and individual hairs, kind of trying to replicate what I see in the reference image. My mixture here is very, not too watery and quite light. So I have more burnt umber and they're rather than violet, because Violet can quite, can bring mixed to go darker quite easily. A specific brand of burnt umber, which is White Nights, is not very pigmented anyway. So I'm just going over some of those specific strands that I wanted to stand out more. I like to step back here and there to assess how a painting is going, just to take a look at it and decide what I want to do with it. Basically. Now I've wet my brush and I'm kind of smoothing out some of those hairs. I'm drying everything with my heat tool. I'm not mixing some burnt umber with some blue. Ultramarine blue would be a good color to mix for any blue, really just to get a darker color that is not black, which can sometimes be a little bit opaque. And I'm going into the eyelashes always being very delicate. And again, as I said earlier, not putting too much pressure on them and creating that curving shape. That eyelashes have. Just barely touching the paper with the tip of my brush. We have some eyelashes, they are going downwards towards the outer edge. For the bottom, eyelashes be even more delicate if possible, as they are very fine and don't bring the darkness all the way down because they tend to get even finer at the tip. So making them darker at the root and lighter at the tip is generally a good idea. I'm also going in with some burnt umber and a pinprick of violet to darken up that shadow near to where the bridge of the nose would be. See you in the final segment. 6. Finishing Touches and Project: Welcome to the final segment of this class. I'm now mixing dark color or dark value for this painting. And you can either mix burnt umber and ultramarine blue to get a more transparent black are just makes black if you prefer to do so. And I'm rolling my brush in that mixture, which is very concentrated. There's not much water in it. You can see that rolling motion. This helps me pick up paint on all sides of the brush. I'm going into that pupil and I'm just filling it in using the tip of this Raquel number six brush, which is a brush that comes to a nice point. And then just repeating the action and leaving a little highlight, which is just the white of the paper inside the pupil. And then just using that lack to go over certain individual eyelashes just to make them stand out more and leaving the other one's lighter, just to give the eye a more natural appearance and the painting a more expressive modes. Then also darkening that area just above the highlight, as I was saying earlier, if you really wanted to highlight, to pop or the standout, placing it in an area that is darker or surrounding it with darker paint is really going to make it pop. I'm cleaning my brush and going into any areas that need to be smoothed out. And I am also going in with some dark paint from my palate into the corner of the eyeball. Because I really feel that in the final stages of this painting, some shadow areas need to be reinforced as they have dried. Lighter, of course, as always. Going into the tear duct, into the top of the iris again in the inside of the iris. Just looking back and forth between my painting and the reference image and see which areas need to be darkened up. Mixing some burnt umber here I'm creating a puddle orbit, so lots of water. And I'm flicking it with my brush just by tapping the handle of my brush with my forefinger, using a very confident steady movement. And I'm also picking up some blue and I'm repeating that same action again, going all around the eye area and then also bringing it up above the eyebrow. And this is a step that will really make the painting look loose and expressive. I'm then mixing some burnt umber with that violet. And I'm going into the area in the corner of the eyelid. Not only to intensify shadows, but to create that nice contrast between the browns and the blue of the iris. And I use my clean damp brush to smooth out any hard edges and to create nice and smooth transitions of color. And also using that mixture to go over the crease of the eyelid. And also to intensify that shadow, which is hinting at the beginning of the top of the bridge of the nose and then smoothing it out with my clean damp brush. Just picked up my gouache gouache or white gel pen and adding some highlights, dotting them around the eye. And you will also see me go in with some burnt umber and doffing that into the iris just to add some dimension. So we've come to the end of my class and I hope you've thoroughly enjoyed it as much as I did. And please upload your project of this expressive watercolor I to Skillshare so that I can give you some feedback. And also tagging me at my Instagram handle, drawings in a drawer, all in one word. If you're a beginner and watercolor and would also like to check out my other class on Skillshare for portrait. It's called Women in watercolor. I also have a YouTube channel where I often upload product reviews and tutorials and it's also called drawings in a drawer. I hope to see you in my next class. Bye.