A Great Stenciling Tip for Making Eyes Look Alive

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A Great Stenciling Tip for Making Eyes Look Alive

Have you ever heard someone say, "That picture keeps looking at me." Well, here are two stenciling tips for adding realistic effects to eyes. The best way to breathe life into a painting is to get it to look back at you. So, let's get to it!

The first tip gives eyes a wet and round appearance. Use a very thin artist brush and dip it into white paint. Brush the paint in a half circle motion around the iris (black center) of the eye. The paint of the eye must still be wet so that you get a blending effect.

If the eye color has dried, pour a little on your palette and swirl it around with the white in the half circle motion. Don’t blend the white paint too well. You want the white to leave streaks of the lightened eye color to give the appearance of a deep, glassy look.

The second tip for eyes is so easy. Use a very thin artist brush and dip the tip straight down into a dab of white paint. With the same straight down motion, paint a dot or even two just off the center of the iris. This will give the eyes an appearance of light reflection.

Here are some examples using each stenciling tip described above:

Notice the swirling motion that the white paint left when blended with the wet black paint of the eye. You can see where some of the black paint was pulled back into the white paint with the brush. This really contributes to the glassy effect.

What do you think about the two white dots? Do they remind you of light reflection?

Check out the whole painting below.

I’ve added two more samples of eyes finished with these techniques and the whole picture for you to see the effects. Notice how this works with different shaped eyes.

There is nothing like a pair of puppy dog eyes to pull at your heart strings! I hope these hints and tips help you get that effect in your next painting project.

If you liked the stencil designs used as examples on this page, visit Designs From Penny for these and other fun projects. All designs are available in downloadable format so you can have your stencil design emailed to you and get your project started quickly!

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