MC_04_Value.pdf

Richard Robinson's

Mastering Color

[Chapter 4]

Value

Oils

Large palette - larger than A3 size is

good. An A2 sized glass palette is ideal.

Black and white paint - doesn't really

matter which type.

Brushes of any size.

Painting medium for oils like Liquin or

Chroma Archival Classic Medium.

Palette Knife

Color Checker (see notes)

9 Value Scale (see notes)

Acrylics

Large stay-wet palette - A3 or bigger is

good.

Black and white paint - doesn't really matter

which type.

Brushes of any size.

Retarding Medium to slow the drying of

your paints.

Water spray bottle for keeping your paints

wet.

Palette Knife

Color Checker (see notes)

9 Value Scale (see notes)

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I f you remember from the previous chapter, Value is one of the 3 dimensions of color and it means 'the

lightness or darkness of a color', as if you were seeing a color through a black and white camera. It

seems funny to be doing a course on color and starting out with black and white, but value is the main

design component of any representational painting and also the way we see form. Color is a tricky thing

to get right, but if you get the values right you are 90% of the way there already. Have a look at this

picture in full color. Now let's remove the color. You can still understand the painting right? It still

makes sense, but take away value and it won't make any sense at all, it will just be a jumble of flat color.

Even artist's such as Derain and Matisse who used color arbitrarily were often very careful to get the

values correct so that the images still made sense to the viewer.

Richard Robinson's

Value

Mastering Color

[Chapter 4]

Seeing Value

One of the hardest parts of using value properly is just to

be able to see it in the first place. How can we accurately

judge a color as a value? These next exercises are

designed to help you with that. There is an infinite range

of values in nature but for painters, no more than 9 values

are needed for convincing realism, so we generally use a 9

value scale with black as 1 and white as 9. So let's go

ahead and make a 9 value scale and put that to use with

some exercises which will help with the tricky business of

seeing color as value.

A Typical 9 Value Painter's Scale

First you'll need to print out the red cube and the

corresponding gray cube and construct both of them to

do the exercise after this one, so it's a good idea to do that

now so your paint won't dry out when you're making the

cubes. It's best to print the cubes on thicker paper if you

have it so that your cubes are sturdier and straighter.

Exercise #1: Make a 9 value scale.

The goal of this exercise is to make a scale of 9 even steps from black to white. Our first inclination is to

start from one end or the other and just add a bit of the other paint to it, repeating that until we have 9

steps. That's actually very difficult to do, so here's an easier way. Have your 9 value scale printed out

from the end of the lesson notes, or your Painter's Ultimate Tool from the Chapter 3 lesson notes. If you

print it on high quality setting on photopaper you'll get a better grayscale where the black is really

black. First of all, place your black and white as far apart as you can on your palette - you'll need lots of

room for mixing.

The completed 9 value scale.

Richard Robinson's

Value

Mastering Color

[Chapter 4]

You may notice when you first start mixing that your black actually goes a bit bluish when you add

white. You can add some raw umber into your pile of black if you want to make it a more neutral hue

although it's not really necessary for the following exercises.

Find the middle value (5) - that's what we'll mix first, right in between the black and white. You would

think that you could just add half black and half white and you would have a middle value gray.

Actually it's more like 35% black, 65% white, depending on what type of paint you're using. Just try it

and you'll see. Start out with small amounts and then use more paint once you know the correct

proportions to use - this will ensure you won't waste too much paint trying to adjust a large pile.

We need to check the value against the gray scale, so we smooth a bit out on the palette and hold the

number 5 value on the scale next to it, making sure the scale is flat on the palette, or hovering at the

same angle so that the light is the same on both things. Now squint at it. If you see any difference in

value you need to adjust your pile.

Another good idea is to make a large value scale and stick it underneath a clear glass palette so you've

always got it there for easy reference. (I've made one for you in your lesson notes.) You could even

make it as big as your whole palette and use it to mix your colors on top of - this would be great to

make sure you stay within your predetermined values - something we'll talk about soon.

Make sure you mix a big pile of this mid value because we're going to use it to mix the other values.

Once you've got your mid gray right, then you mix value number 3 by mixing black with your mid gray.

Check that against your value scale until it's right and then do the same for value number 7.

Now we've got a 5 value scale, which in itself is a very useful thing, but we're going to mix the 4 in

between values now so that we have the full 9 value scale. It will probably take you about 20 -30

minutes to mix the 9 value scale the first time you do it, but take your time and get it right because

you'll need a good scale to do the following exercises properly. Remember that you are trying to get 9

equal steps here, so when you've finished your scale make sure you squint at it and check that you have

9 equal steps - you may need to fiddle with a few of them to get it just right.

Exercise #2: Paint a 9 value study of your red cube.

This exercise is about seeing color as value, which is a tricky thing to do, and it's also about seeing value

relationships. We're going to paint a study of the red cube using just our 9 values of gray which we

have already mixed on our palette. High chroma colors like this red make it very difficult to see what

value they are - it's hardest with high chroma because, if you remember, high chroma colors have the

least amount of gray in them, and we're trying to see them as gray , so it's much harder to do this with

colors like this which have no gray in them.

To help with that, we're going to setup the #5 gray cube right next to the red one so that we can use it

for comparison. The red cube and the gray cube are the same value (or should at least be very close,

depending on your printer). Set them up in front of your easel close together at the same angle so they

are sitting just the same and you can see 3 sides of each cube with each side being a different value.

(Squint at it to help you see the values.) Try and arrange your setup so that you have the same or similar

light source on your canvas as on your blocks. Place the blocks on top of a white sheet of paper and try

to make the background as simple as possible too. We will be using this setup again, so if you can,

arrange it somewhere which won't be disturbed. Have your 9 value gray scale checker and color

checker handy.

Richard Robinson's

Value

Mastering Color

[Chapter 4]

The Setup

Drawing

The first thing to do is get the drawing right. Here's a good chance to practice your perspective

drawing skills. That's really not the subject of this lesson, but just make sure your lines A, B, C are

converging to a point as should the lines D,E,F. Note that if you make your lines converge too quickly

the cube will look warped like through a fish eye lens. Just Google 'perspective drawing' for more

information on this. You can sketch this lightly on the canvas using either a pencil or mid value gray

paint thinned with a bit of medium. Don't forget to draw the cast shadow on the table too.

Vanishing point

Horizon line = your eye level

Vanishing point

Fish eye lens effect caused by placing

the vanishing points too close together.

Richard Robinson's

Value

Mastering Color

[Chapter 4]

Analyzing Chroma

Now once you have the drawing pretty good we can start painting looking at the color and value. Let's

start with the side which looks to you like it has the highest chroma color - the color with the least

amount of gray in it. You can use your color checker to help you. Once you have that, then decide what

value on your 9 value scale this color is closest too. Use the gray cube for comparison. Okay, so let's say

it's a value 5. Let's now get that value paint, mix in a tiny bit of oil painting medium so it's easier to work

with or retarder medium if you're working with acrylics, and just cover that area with paint. I always

paint just beyond where my shape finishes because then I'll work back into that with the surrounding

colors and that gives me a chance to choose soft or hard edges and not have to struggle to paint

exactly up to an edge which may leave bits of white canvas showing through.

Analyzing Value

First thing you'll notice is that this looks too dark, and that's because it's surrounded by white at the

moment. Now clean your brush off on a paper or rag and pick up your value checker. Let's see what the

value difference is between the side we've just painted and the darkest side of the cube. Again,

squinting will help you to see the values better. Squinting filters some of the color out through your

eyelashes, making it more gray and easier to read as a value. So we're trying to find out how many steps

there are between these two values. That's the important thing to learn here - it doesn't really matter

which value we started painting with, so long as when we come to choose the next value, we get this

value relationship right - how many steps are there from the first value to the next value?

It looks to me like it's about a 2 step difference so I choose a value for the dark side which best

represents the value difference I'm seeing in my cube. Remember to paint just beyond your shape and

then where the two values meet we get to define that edge - is it soft or is it sharp? Squinting will also

help you to determine whether your edges should be soft or sharp. A sharp edge will come forward

and a soft edge will recede, so you can exaggerate these properties to help make your cube look more

three dimensional by softening the edges which are the furthest away from you.

Follow the same steps to analyze and paint the third side. Once that's done paint the shadow, paying

close attention to the edges here, and then paint the background in, keeping it as simple as possible.

When you paint the background in you get to redefine the cube and work on the edges.

So what did you learn? A whole bunch of stuff I imagine. I learn something about seeing and painting

values every single time I do this exercise. The more you do it the more you learn. This is the first in a

series of exercises you'll find in your lessons notes which will expand your understanding of value and

color. These and the following exercises in this course are not just one time things - if that's all you do

then that's all you'll learn. If you watch this video and don't do the exercises you'll only be getting a tiny

fraction of the knowledge which is available here, so I really encourage you to get your paints out after

you've watched this video and actually do these exercises with me and then keep exploring them in

your own time.

The beauty of these block exercises is that it strips your painting down to the absolute core elements -

this is fundamental training for seeing light and color. The next step of course is to get other basic

shapes like spheres and cylinders and cones and do the same exercises using these to increase your

understanding of how light behaves on rounded surfaces and how that affects the value relationships.

In the next chapter we'll discover how to see and analyze color relationships correctly, amongst other

things, but for now I'll give you some more exercises to help deepen your understanding of value.

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