Mona Lisa's Eyes

Mona Lisa is a great teacher,
the portrait is very simple and friendly.

Leonardo does a great job showing us,
the essentials without sacrificing beauty.

The more time you spend with Mona,
the more inviting copying her will seem.

As the saying goes,
eyes are windows to the soul.

And that should be the first thing you learn,
Mona's eyes are a dream to learn from.

But also an invitation,
to more complex arrangements.

Today those can be found by searching for,
"eye painting tutorial" on an image search engine.

This is one of the rare few cases,
where a video tutorial may not be better.

A still image that shows all the steps,
gives you more time to master the details.

While it is tempting to draw the eyes,
by just drawing until they are done.

It is faster and more reliable,
to create a little system of four or eight steps.

In most cases you probably won't need the extra detail,
and you maybe able to skip some steps.

But be mindful of your portfolio,
the extra details make for a wonderful presentation of your abilities.

Even though Mona Lisa is magically simple,
all the details are still there, and you decide how far you want to go.

Beyond that,
you can change the style of eyes.

I like Pop Surrealism so I make my bigger,
and more colorful.

If you are using Krita hit the "M" key from time to time,
to see a mirrored version of your painting.

Our eyes fill in blanks,
it is really good to see the portrait from a different side.

Take good care of your layers, name them well,
and always keep the ones you are not using locked, at least at first.

Try to change hue of your reference image to a more skin-like tone,
there is no end to the lessons she can teach.

It is OK not to like computers,
and paint on canvas or wooden panels.

But you should still try learning Krita, or GIMP,
and take all the time and tutorials in the world.

Once you set your first painting as your phone background,
everything will change.

You will have no doubt about your artistic abilities,
and what art is for.

Once you get to your first exhibition,
be sure to print out many strikes, key-chains, posters, and paint some shoes as well.

And Art is a kind of class,
in which you create your own style, rather than just buying copy at the store.

By subtle analogy to art,
we learn to create all kinds of other things.

And we discover that there are no limits to what we can learn on our own,
so as long as it is interesting to us.