Keys To Drawing Project: Eyes

This is the second post in my journey through Bert Dodson’s Keys to Drawing.
Find the first project here.

 

This week I undertook Dodson’s Project 1-D–Eyes: drawing my own eyes using a mirror. The lead up to this exercise was a riff on the necessity to draw exactly what we see, not what we think something should look like:

“As you draw, you will often encounter conflicts between what you see and what you know… We should draw, for the time being at least, as if we know nothing, and were obedient only to what our eye tells us to draw. This is the key to natural, life-like drawing.” Dodson

In the past, I always sought to make my drawings look “right,” which meant following some memorized idea of what the subject is supposed to look like. No wonder they came off cartoony. So, for this exercise on drawing eyes I drew my own eyes first from memory and then using a mirror in an effort to see what is lost when I let my mind lead the drawing:

Now, what the mirror showed me:

I also drew my cat’s eyes, because CATS!!! And PRACTICE!!! Again, I tried drawing first from memory and then from real life.

Lastly, I drew Brian’s eyes as he watched poker, with my face awkwardly close to his and my intense stare no doubt creepy (he’s a good sport). It was actually this drawing where I felt the greatest tug between wanting to draw what I think looks right versus the reality. He was sitting with a window near his right eye, and the glare made a weird glaze over that eye. I dutifully drew it even though to me it looked strange.

So, Dodson prevails: memory is no substitute for the eyes when it comes to drawing. Even if something looks strange, it’s infinitely more interesting and authentic than the generic imagery of memory.