When it comes to working on eyes during the wood carving process, there are several options. You have to decide whether you are going to carve the eyes completely or carve part of the eyes and paint the rest. A wood carving friend of mine, Steve Reed, has a great method of painting his eyes on his wood carvings. I wanted to share his method with you and he has graciously allowed me to share his eye painting tutorial to help others learn to make their wood carving more realistic with painted eyes.
The first photos show my BLO mixture. It is BLO with a little raw sienna and yellow ocher mixed in. Apologize for the lighting, it’s not really as orange as it appears. I first coat the entire carving with the base coat, then wipe it off with paper towels. I then proceed to paint the eyeballs with Delta Light Ivory using a 0 size brush. Normally I put about 3 – 4 applications of the light ivory, full strength.
