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

Homework assigment  Week 4: Translate values to colors

The goal this week’s assignment is to practice translating your value-study paintings into colors of the same value. In this assignment you will be mixing a large variety of various colors, whatever colors you choose. You will learn to identify the value of each color, and place a stroke of that color in the part of the painting that corresponds to its value. Remember - you have to SQUINT to see if the value of your color matches one of the grey stripes.

In this assignment, you will be creating a value checker card. The instructions below, are taken from my book, “How to Paint Fast, Loose and Bold”. Your value checker card must have the same number of values as your value-study paintings from the previous lesson. In the examle below 3 values are used.

The value checker card shown here is 3 values. Create the card using as many values as you need - from 3 to 10.

Exercise 1:

Create a value checker card in solid stripes using as many values as you used in the previous exercise. In other words, if you created a value study in 5 values, you will have 5 solid “stripes” of grey on your value checker card. When creating the greys, make the transition between the values even, so that your stripes are equally graduated from one to another. If you squint and notice that some of the stripes lump together, then the values of those stripes are too similar. The value checker card can be created from Black and White acrylic paints by mixing various greys. Print out the value diagrams from the previous lesson to check your accuracy.

• Hint: The edges between the stripes should be hard edged, not soft or blended

Exercise 2:

Create a painting using swatches of color that match the values in your value study (from the previous exercise). To start, you can either trace your subject on to a new canvas, or you can paint your color swatches directly on top of your value study.

If you paint directly over your value study:

  • take a picture of the value study before adding color to it. This is necessary because once you paint over the value study, there will be no way of checking to see if your colors match the values

  • make sure your color mixtures are opaque. If your colors are transparent it will be impossible to judge correctly.

    Below is the same video shown in lesson 4 that shows how to match color to value.

Helpful Hints:

  • Make your color check strokes about the size of 1/2 a postage stamp at least, the smaller your dots, the harder it is to judge their value next to the greys.

  • If you fill up your value checker card you can always make another one fast and easily - or just paint over it with new stripes.

  • Keep the color swatches opaque - not watery or too much oil medium.

  • Using a LARGE VARIETY of different color mixtures - don’t use the same colors repeatedly, which is uninteresting

  • Use the value checker card to make sure your color is the correct value, before you paint it in.

  • You can make your colors realistic or completely unrealistic.

  • Mix 2 or 3 colors together that you’ve never mixed before - explore - try anything - You’ll discover new colors!

  • The only goal is to match the value study accurately. The color mixture doesn’t have to be dead on, just visually closer to one value stripe than the one next to it on either side

  • If you have a hard time squinting to determine values, try using your cell phone and set it to “mono” (Iphone) so the image is translated to black and white. There is likely a similar setting for other smart phones.

  • Post both your painting AND the b/w photo of your painting in to the group page.

  • Avoid having the white canvas show in between colors

  • The shapes of colors in your painting are up to you, use any shapes you want. Its more interesting visually when the shapes are not all a uniform size (i.e. all squares or rectangles same size).

  • Experiment with color mixtures all you want - just make sure the values are correct

Shown are examples of student work:

Exercise 3:
Create another painting(s) using the same process as Exercise 2, but for this assignment use a limited color palette of 4 colors plus white. (plus black/ grey if you choose)

Exercise 4:
Create another painting(s) using the same process as Exercise 2, but for this assignment use all the colors on your palette plus a mother color. When you post your work, please specify the mother color you used.

Keep in mind:

  • You can mix your colors in any proportion to get the values correct

  • Where the colors butt together, blend them if you wish to remove the hard edges. Don’t worry if blending together creates “mud” or greys. Greys are needed to balance bright colors.

  • Optional: try arranging your colors according to relative temperatures - warm colors in light, cooler colors in shadows

  • Optional: try deciding where you want the focal area to be, and use more saturated colors and contrasting values in that area