Part 1: Eyes
If you were an apprentice artist in a large 15th-century workshop, perhaps in Italy or Japan, you would know exactly how to paint eyes. There would be a recognised way to approach the subject and a specific method to follow. These days however, there are almost as many ways to treat painting an eye as there are pairs of eyes in the world. This is both a help and a hindrance when it comes to actually painting a portrait, because we have wonderful artistic freedom yet almost too much choice.
I believe what we are all searching for is our own way of responding to a particular problem. A good strategy for finding that unique path is to be inspired by other people’s attempts and then experiment ourselves. The exercise at the end of this article is about doing the first part with the hope that it will give rise to the second.
It can be useful to
