Captain Jack portrait in progress 5 - Sweet shining eyes

Captain Jack’s right eye is finished. 

My last post showed the left eye finished, and described the colors and reflections in an eye that make it look realistic.

Today I worked my way across the bridge of the nose, the area that connects the two eyes. I have to pay attention to getting them even and level with eachother.

Putting in the symmetrical bridge of the nose helps with that. The black area, that is; below that the bridge of his nose is white. The black area, it's shapes, help me place the inner corners of the eyes. Since Captain Jack was looking squarely at the viewer, the corners of each eye are equidistant from the center-line of his face. That's not often the case with portraits, when the subject's face is turned slightly more to one side than the other.

2

The right eye is more shadowed than the left. The lighting on Captain Jack is coming from the left. So the colors and reflections in the two eyes are not the same.

3

A close-up of the right eye showing the colors I used. Mostly very dark browns, and some warm and cool dark greys, ultramarine blue, and black. Pale grey and a muted mauve for the sclera (the white portion of the eye)...with just a touch of red-brown. 

Some of these shapes are smaller than the sharpest pencil point. It takes a very fine touch to keep them accurate. That bit of red-brown was the merest little dot with the tip of a pencil-point.

4

The Prismacolor pencil colors I’m using, and Sindy’s photo on the monitor in front of me as I’m working.  

When I sent Sindy these pictures of Captain Jack’s sweet little shining eyes, she wrote back,

“Made me cry again.”

🎨 Prismacolor pencil on “Flannel Grey” Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 10 x 12 inches.

Commissioned by Sindy B.