Color: From Boring to Brilliant! | Instructor, Patti Mollica ©Patti Mollica

Homework assigment  Lesson 3: 
The Value of Values

Simplified Values - Introduction

Values are the relative lightness or darkness of an object. An Eggplant is a dark value, an orange a middle value, a garlic a light value. When you look out into the world, you see thousands of values, maybe millions. IF you want your paintings have a bold quality to them, it’s important to learn how to try and translate your subject into as few values as possible. It helps to squint your eyes, which cuts down on the amount of light entering your eye, and it helps to “group together” similar values - without obsuring the legibility of your subject. There are many ways to interpret values and editing thousands of values down to 5 or even 10 takes practice.

Question: This course is about color - why all the focus on b/w/grey values?

Color and Value can’t be separated. Every color has a value. When a painting is unsucessful, often the problem is that the underlying design - the arrangement of shapes and values is scattered. In otherwords, the organization of value-shapes is chaotic, cluttered, disjointed, unpleasing. This can be easily seen by taking a photo of an unsucessful painting and translating it into black and white, which helps one to see the arrangement of values and shapes.

Simplifying the number of values and creating a pleasing arrangement of these value shapes - one that is legible and well composed - is essential to any painter. Often color gets “blamed” when the problem is disorganized values and too many shapes which results in a visually chaotic, fragmented underlying design.

Exercise 1: Study this image closely, print it out (included in reference images) and keep it nearby. This is important information and rarely taught. Why? Because it requires on the part of the artist, the ability to interpret a subject rather than copy it verbatim. When I was a graphic designer I spent many hours learning how to see, simplify and interpret values - the old-fashioned way, working with a Black and Grey felt tip marker and doing many, many sketches - by hand. In my opinion the concept explained here is well written in it’s explanation, and one of the most important keys to success in painting. Interpretting what you see and turning it into a readable, dimensional subject in as few values as possible is a skill that can not be practiced enough. Squint, interpret and simplify! Then do it again with another image, repeat.

Value apps for iphone: (available on the Apple App Store)
”Value Study”
”Painters Value Check”
”See Value”

If Android, search for: “Notanizer”

Reference photos

Exercise 2: On a canvas board, create a 5 or 10 Value Scale. The goal of this exercise is to help students learn the amount of paint required to lighten / darken mixtures more efficiently. Although this exercise seems simple, it is very helpful in gaining an ability to judge the amount of light or or dark paint necessary to raise or lower their values in an actual painting. Hint: black is very strong pigment - for light and middle tones it is easier to start out with Titanium white and gradually add black to darken.

Watch a youtube video demonstration for this exercise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA_g65utFXg

Exercise 3: Create several 5 value (or 10 value) painting studies as demonstrated in the lesson video.  The goal this week is to learn how to simplify a b/w image into 5 values, 1. white (or very light grey) 2. light grey 3. middle 4. middle-dark 5. very dark.

Note to beginner level students: If editing a b/w photo down to 5 or 10 values is too difficult for the level you’re currently at, don’t worry! Just do your best to replicate the photo using as many values and shades of grey as you need. In otherwords, adapt the assignment fit your skill level. Try to match what you see using black, white and a number of pre-mixed grey paints to paint your subject. You can also work with any of the less complex reference images from week 1 and 2 - I.e the pear, the orange slices, the bird… keep it simple, with simple shapes.

Reference photos are included in “Lesson 3 Resources”

Hints:

1.Mix up several grey piles of paint. I.e.3, 5, 10, 15 etc. Don’t intermix and create more values while painting
2. Have several brushes handy for use when dipping ito each of the various values
3. If you are using the same brush for a all your values, clean it off with a papter towel in betweeh dipping
4. Squint and interpret with the intention of making your subject readable.
5. Ask yourself continually - what is the SHAPE of the light struck area; what is the SHAPE of the area not directly struck by the light source. Try to be accurate about those shapes, it creates a three dimensional interpretation.

Reference photos

Using any of the photos, create a value painting as demonstrated in the lesson video.

The 5 or 10 values you will use for this assignment are included with your photo reference images

In the Lesson 3 video demo I used a very light grey as a substitute for pure white, but for this assignment use the values shown above. I use Golden Grey Neutral 6 for my middle grey, but you can also mix any of the greys from black and white. Just make sure they are evenly spaced when placed next to each other. Squint to make sure there are no obvious “jumps” that are not even.

Squint regularly and hold your painting away, to see if it “reads” well from across the room.

What does “read well” mean? It means that at a distance, i.e. from across the room, the viewer should have an idea what they are looking at - whether it be a cat, a vase of flowers, a landscape, etc. If its unreadable from across the room or when you are squinting, make whatever changes necessary to “help” the image be more readable. That may mean changing the value of an adjacent shape or object. YES - you have artistic license to make these types of changes to make the value study “work”. It’s called design, and you are the designer.

The viewer will only see your painting - the final result. They will never see the photo. The readability of your image is more important than copying your image at the expense of its legibility.

If need be, take artistic licesnce to make the image more structural or “dimensional”. Help the viewer to understand the feeling of volume and dimension they are looking at. Look closely to see what areas are being struck by light and what’s in shadow. Notice the SHAPE of the lightstruck area in relation to the SHAPE of the shadow area. This is important.

When the subject is the same values as the foreground or backgroud:
Not all of the same values need to be separated - some can merge into each other, as long as there is enough visual information elsewhere for the eye to fill in. See the 3 value example below:

1. do not outline your image to separate the values, let identical values merge together without being delineated by an outline. (Pear below, upper right)

2. Notice how the middle grey value of the pear merges with the middle grey background, and the white table merges with the light-struck part of the pear. Not every value has to be separated from similar or identical values if they are adjacent to each other. (Lower left)

In this case there is enough additional visual information for the viewer to know what the object is, and be able to separate the foreground from the background in their “mind’s eye”.

3. If too many of the same values merge together and the image becomes too confusing, the artist should take artistic license to make the image more legible. The more similar values that are merged together, the more difficult it is to recognize the subject matter, because the shape gets obscured. (Lower right)

It’s up to each artists’ judgement to decide how obscure or readable they want their subject to be, based on how much or little they design it so the same values merge together, including the background.

Tips to remember:

1. Make sure you account for all areas in the image - especially and including the background. 

2. Try not blend one value into the next and create more values than you started off with

3. Keep your edges hard so the shape AND value is easy to see.

4. If you change your mind about something, either paint over the passage or scrape off the paint and repaint it. With acrylics, it is easy to paint over the passage without it blending because it dries so fast. Oil painters may need to scrape.

5. Do not leave the white canvas showing thru unless it is supposed to be a white area. 

6. Squint regularly at the greyscale image - and at your painting to see the values in a less detailed manner

7. Remember, its not “WHATS THERE’ (copying) but what SHOULD be there. (What helps the painting be more readable) Take artistic licesnce to make a value study that reads well as a painting, rather than be intent on matching exactly what you see.

8. Be aware of what areas of the object(s) are in light and what’s in shadow.

9. Give yourself permission to change your mind about anything -and try other values - as I did in the second video. (Take a photo with your cell phone if you are not sure about the change. You can always go back to what you had)

10. The shape of each value piece should be hard-edged and fit together like puzzle pieces, not blended together.  (This does not apply to beginner painters)

Don’t strees out if you find this challenging... it is. But it is also the single-most important tool that helped me become a consistently better painter. 

Beginners, if this feels too challenging, just copy what you see, paint as many dark, middle and light values as you need, and blend edges wherever you see fit. We all started out by copying exactly what we see, this is an important step in the artistic journey so make it enjoyable.

Shown are some examples of photos translated to a limited number of values, in most cases, three. This assignment allows for five, (ten or more if three values feels too difficult. Work within your level.

Remember:

• Squint - it helps “lump together” similar values. Open your eyes to see colors, squint to limit values

• Determine areas are in light and what parts are in shadow - bypass the superficial detail, look for 3-D’ness, the planes of light and shadow that indicate dimension, structure and depth

• There is not ONE way to translate, there are as many ways as you can conjure up. Create several variations and designs until you find a solution that is the most readable yet most simple.

Learning to see, simplify and translate values takes practice. Be patient with yourself and experiment with all types of subjects, both simple and complex. Practicing this skill will lead to stronger, bolder paintings.

Reference photos