Values In Painting

 VALUES IN PAINTING by Jill Saur

 

I hope all of my students are doing well during this pandemic.  Please don't let the light of your artistic gift be dimmed during this time.  Hang in there.  I've heard from some of you that you're not painting.  I went through my own period where I put my brush down.  However, hope won out and I've been painting up a storm.

Here's a reminder about values in your painting.  Let me know what your up to and send me some pics of your work!  My Best, Jill

The paintings below are by Winslow Homer. The first painting is the original.  The second painting is the same one.  I removed the color from the second image to see the tonal values.

Lightness or tonal value is the light or dark of a color, regardless of its hue. Creating a black and white painting is very helpful to train your eye to perceive value.

Sometimes it’s easier to classify values into three groups: lights, darks, and mid-range.  Roughly, values from one through three are the lightest values.  Values from four through seven are the mid values, and values from eight through ten are the darkest values.  A general guide is that mid-tones should occupy 70% of your painting, the lightest lights 20%, and the darkest darks should occupy 10% of your work.

If I'm going to paint from a photo that I take, the first thing I do is put it in a photo program and I turn it into a black and white image.  When I do this, I know immediately if the image has a good range to make the composition interesting as well as intriguing.

A number of my students have been working on value drawings and paintings.  I hope this tip helps you see the importance of training your eye to see and use value changes in your artwork.

www.JillSaurFineArt.com