How to Draw a Human Head

A Tombow mono eraser is a great tool to use for quick fixes. Because it's so small, it helps when you need a lot of precision to touch up tiny areas like the eyes in your drawing

To draw realistic eyes, look at photos of how light passes through the eye as well as what parts are shaded. The top part of the eye is always in the shadow. The shadow is cast by the eyelid. Students usually don't include this shadow, which can make the eyes they draw look less realistic. The bottom part of the eye is always lighter because the light passes through it. Remember, the eye itself is a ball covered by the eyelids. Make it round! The pupil should be round too. The pupil and iris become more oval-like when the eye rotates in space. Observe where you have a highlight in the eye⁠—it's the brightest spot on the eye. Adding a tiny highlight to the eye is crucial for making it look really "alive" and realistic. Photographers often exaggerate the brightness of it to make the eyes more expressive. Finally, don't forget to look at the top and bottom shapes of the eye carefully because they are not the same. Students often draw and paint almond-shaped eyes without paying attention to the unique curvature of the top and bottom "outline" of the eye.

Subject, color, composition, contrast and creativity or unique vision are all important elements in creating art. But if you want to focus on one thing, it's your composition. Besides a common rule of thirds, study art for other ways to compose the image. For example, the use of triangles and circles was very popular during the Renaissance, while the bird's eye view was borrowed from Japanese impressionists. The use of diagonals between figures and shapes have been explored by artists for centuries, so look for different ways they're used in illustrations. Basically, a new vantage point can give a very unique composition to a standard subject and give you so much to work with.