How to Draw an Eye
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Draw a long flat almond shape, wider than you think.
Measure it: the width should be roughly twice the height.
Drawing on paper instead?
We straighten and clean up the photo for you. Paper counts exactly the same.
About this drawing
An eye is the first subject where being roughly right stops being good enough. Everybody has looked at millions of them, so a viewer spots an error instantly even when they cannot say what it is - which is exactly why it is worth learning properly.
The good news is that almost all of it comes down to three things a beginner can be told: an eye is about twice as wide as it is tall, the two lids are not mirror images of each other, and the iris is a full circle that the top lid cuts across. Get those and the rest is shading.
Step by step
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Step 1
Draw a long flat almond shape, wider than you think.
An eye is about twice as wide as it is tall. Beginners draw it far too round, which is why drawn eyes so often look startled. Get the overall footprint down first and worry about the lid shapes afterwards.
Watch out Drawing a pointed leaf shape, symmetrical top and bottom. Real lids are not mirror images.
Check Measure it: the width should be roughly twice the height.
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Step 2
Make the top curve peak nearer the nose, the bottom nearer the ear.
This asymmetry is the whole secret of a convincing eye. The highest point of the upper lid sits toward the inner corner; the lowest point of the lower lid sits toward the outer. Get this and the eye reads as real even if everything else is rough.
Watch out Peaking both curves in the middle, which produces the flat 'cartoon eye' shape.
Check The two peaks should be clearly offset from each other.
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Step 3
Draw the inner corner as a small downward hook.
The tear duct sits lower than the rest of the inner corner and hooks down toward the nose. It is a tiny mark and it does an enormous amount of work - without it the eye looks pasted onto the face rather than set into it.
Watch out Closing the inner corner to a neat point like the outer one.
Check The inner corner should sit lower than the outer corner.
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Step 4
Draw the iris as a circle, cut off by the top lid.
The iris is a full circle - always - but the upper lid almost always covers the top of it. Draw the whole circle lightly first and then decide where the lid crosses; guessing at the visible arc alone gives you an iris that is subtly the wrong shape.
Watch out Drawing the iris as a shape that fits between the lids, so it comes out as an oval.
Check If you continued the iris upward it should complete a circle.
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Step 5
Let the upper lid cut across the top of the iris.
Only in a startled or staring expression is the whole iris visible. A relaxed eye has the top covered by roughly a fifth. This one choice sets the expression more than anything else you will do.
Watch out Showing white all the way around the iris, which reads as fear or surprise.
Check A slice of the iris should be hidden behind the top lid.
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Step 6
Draw the pupil in the centre of the iris.
The pupil is concentric with the iris - dead centre, always. It is also the darkest thing in the entire drawing, so decide now that nothing else will be darker than this.
Watch out Placing the pupil off-centre in the iris, which makes the eye look like it is malfunctioning rather than looking somewhere.
Check The gap between pupil and iris edge should be even all round.
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Step 7
Give the upper lid thickness with a second line below it.
Eyelids are flesh, a couple of millimetres thick, and the underside catches light. Drawing that thin band is one of the biggest jumps toward realism available in this lesson, and it takes one stroke.
Watch out Treating the lid as a single line, which makes the eye look like it was cut out with scissors.
Check There should be a visible strip between the two lid lines.
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Step 8
Add the crease above the lid, following its curve loosely.
The crease echoes the lid but is not parallel to it - it sits closer above the inner corner and further above the outer. How far above varies enormously between people, which is a large part of why eyes look different from each other.
Watch out Drawing the crease as an exact parallel copy of the lid.
Check The gap between crease and lid should change along its length.
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Step 9
Fill the pupil solid black.
Commit to it. The pupil is the anchor for every other value in the drawing: once it is as dark as your pencil goes, you can judge everything else against it. Leaving it grey is why beginner eyes look hazy.
Watch out Shading it dark grey to 'stay safe'. There is nothing to be safe from.
Check It should be the darkest mark on the page, with nothing close.
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Step 10
Shade the iris darker at its outer rim and around the pupil.
An iris is a ring of fibres, darker at the outer edge and immediately around the pupil, lighter in between. Shade with strokes radiating from the pupil outward - the direction of the marks does as much as their darkness here.
Watch out Filling the iris with flat even grey, which kills the transparency.
Check You should see a lighter ring between the pupil and the outer rim.
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Step 11
Leave a small white highlight, half on the pupil, half on the iris.
One highlight, straddling the pupil edge, on the same side as your light source. This single untouched spot is what makes an eye look wet and alive. Leave the paper - do not shade it and erase back.
Watch out Adding several highlights, or putting one in the middle of the pupil, which reads as a glass bead.
Check Exactly one highlight, and it should overlap the pupil edge.
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Step 12
Shade the top of the white where the lid casts a shadow.
The white of the eye is a sphere, and the upper lid sits over it casting a shadow. The 'white' is therefore never white except at the very bottom. This is the step that stops the eye looking like a sticker on the face.
Watch out Leaving the whites pure white, which flattens the eyeball into a flat shape.
Check The white should be clearly darker at the top than at the bottom.
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Step 13
Darken the corners of the white slightly.
The eyeball curves away at both corners, so those areas turn from the light. Adding a soft tone there is a small change that makes the eye read as a ball sitting in a socket.
Watch out Making the corners as dark as the lid shadow, which looks like bruising.
Check Corners darker than the centre of the white, lighter than the lid shadow.
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Step 14
Add the upper lashes: short at the inner corner, longer and swept out at the outer.
Lashes grow in clumps, not evenly, and they curve away from the eye. Draw them from the lid outward in one flick each so they taper naturally - a lash drawn from the tip inward comes out blunt and wrong.
Watch out Drawing evenly spaced spikes all the same length, which reads as a comb.
Check Lashes should be visibly longer toward the outer corner.
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Step 15
Add a few sparse lower lashes, shorter and pointing down.
The lower lashes are far fewer and much shorter than the upper ones. Draw fewer than you think - overdoing them is the fastest way to turn a careful study into a doll.
Watch out Matching the lower lashes to the upper ones in number and length.
Check There should be obviously fewer lower lashes than upper.
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Step 16
Soften the edges you want to recede and sharpen the ones you don't.
Edge control is the last real skill in this lesson. The pupil, the iris rim and the lash line stay crisp; the lid shadow, the corners of the white and the crease should all be soft. A drawing where every edge is equally sharp looks cut out of paper, however accurate it is.
Watch out Sharpening everything at the end because sharp feels finished.
Check Name three soft edges and three sharp ones in your drawing. If you cannot, they are all the same.
What this one actually teaches you
This lesson is where construction, proportion, value and edge control stop being separate skills. You cannot fake any of them on an eye: the proportions are ones everyone knows by heart, the values have to run all the way from paper-white to near-black, and if every edge is the same hardness the whole thing reads as a sticker.
The specific transferable skill is drawing through a form - putting the whole iris circle down before deciding where the lid crosses it. Guessing at the visible arc alone gives you a shape that is subtly wrong, and the same habit fixes wheels, cups, and every other partly-hidden circle you will ever draw.
Practise these: Line confidence Proportion Value range
What you need
A pencil you can get genuinely dark with - a 2B or softer. This lesson needs a real range from white paper to near-black, and a hard office pencil cannot give you the dark end.
If you are working on the canvas here, that range comes from pressure, so a stylus helps. A mouse will get you through the construction steps fine and then struggle with the shading ones, which is worth knowing before you start rather than halfway through.
If it's going wrong
If it looks startled, you are showing white all the way around the iris. Let the top lid cover about a fifth of it.
If it looks flat and pasted on, you have left the white of the eye actually white. It is a sphere sitting under a lid that casts a shadow, so the top of it is always in shade.
If it looks like a diagram, every edge is equally sharp. Keep the pupil, the iris rim and the lash line crisp; let the crease, the lid shadow and the corners go soft.
Draw it four times rather than once carefully. An eye is small enough that four attempts take less time than one laboured one, and the fourth will be visibly better than the first - which is the point.
Print the steps
Take it away from the screen. The step sheet prints on one page.
Questions people ask
- Why does my eye look startled?
- You are showing the whole iris. A relaxed eye has the upper lid covering roughly a fifth of it - white visible all the way around reads as fear or surprise.
- Why does it look flat, like a sticker?
- The white of the eye is probably still white. It is a sphere under a lid that casts a shadow, so it is darker at the top and only close to white near the bottom.
- How many highlights should there be?
- One, straddling the edge of the pupil, on the same side as your light source. Several highlights read as a glass bead rather than a wet eye.
- Should the two lids be the same shape?
- No, and this is the most useful thing in the lesson. The upper lid peaks toward the inner corner and the lower lid dips toward the outer one. Mirroring them gives you the flat cartoon eye shape.
- My lashes look like a comb.
- They are evenly spaced and all the same length. Real lashes grow in clumps, get longer toward the outer corner, and curve away from the eye. Draw fewer than you think.
- How dark should the pupil be?
- As dark as your pencil goes, with nothing else close. It is the anchor you judge every other value against, and leaving it grey is why beginner eyes look hazy.
- Do I need to draw the eyebrow?
- Not for this lesson. The eye has to work on its own first - adding a brow to a weak eye hides the problem rather than fixing it.
- Is this too hard for a beginner?
- It is Level 3, so it assumes you can already finish a drawing. If it is fighting you, the cat and the apple lessons build the two skills this one leans on hardest - construction and value.