Value Painting

Value Painting in Watercolor.

Hi painters! I just talked to a good friend in England as he settles into his new painting studio in their wonderful garden. Time to paint again. I have been sidelined working on a new book entitled: "Urban Design: The Composition of Complexity" about the elements and principles of design composition applied to complex urban settings. Having fun.

Value Painting. Why is it so important?
The next couple of sessions will involve what I think is the most important aspect of painting: value relationships. Why? As you arrange shapes into a larger pattern or composition, you begin telling a story in the composition. The color adds mood through temperature (warm or cool dominance) and local colors (an apple is red, green and yellow). but, the drama of a painting and how the composition is structured or assembled is done through value patterns, the relationship of light to dark. essentially, the eye of the observer will go to the point or area of highest contrast of light--lightest next to darkest. To soften a mood, i may have values in the mid range next to each other that reduce that contrast, reducing the effects of the light--middle value next to a mid-light value.

Value Scale.
In printing, a nine value scale is often used. In painting, a five value scale is more common and is actually a derivation of a three value scale--something like this: (1) lightest, (2) middle value, (3) darkest value. Let's expand that to the following: (1) light, (1.5) mid-light, (2) middle value, (2.5) mid-dark, and (3) dark. So we will use a five value scale for our exercises and experiments.

Recommended Preparation.
What i have learned through practice, reading, self-teaching is that the value pattern of your painting and the composition are inherently entwined. In my sketchbook, i rough out a number of compositions, around 3x5 inch sketches until i start to get a compositional relationship that i like--that has some strength at the center of interest with movement, direction, etc. Next, i do quick value studies of each composition using the value combinations below, emphasizing the center of interest as the place i want the observer's attention. Here are the combinations:

(1) light next to (2) middle value for a sunny and hazy affect;
(1) light next to (3) dark value for a bright and strong sun with strong shadow affects
(2) middle next to (3) dark value for a moody, overcast or darker affect.

Skip Lawrence in "Painting Light and Shadow" helped me greatly through his writings and examples with a nice concept: the majority of value change (assuming three values 1, 2, 3) occur in and around the center of interest with the remaining value occuring predominantly everywhere else. Watch out! Your head will hurt as I did not say that everywhere else is the same color, simply the same value.

For example, for a moody day, i choose to put the mid and dark values at and around the center of interest and everything else is a light. where the light value is can be many colors, local colors, but they are all roughly the same value. Yahoo! Mood. With Skip Lawrence's approach, you can arrive at a matrix of nine moods for the SAME COMPOSITION WITH THREE DIFFERENT CENTERS OF INTEREST.

Exercise.
sketch nine small studies in pencil approx. 2x4 or 3x5 largest three per row, three rows
in row one, select a center of interest and with one color paint three value patterns using that center of interest: 1/3, 1/2, 2/3.
for row two, select another center of interest in the same ccomposition and do 1/3, 1/2, 2/3
repeat of a new center of interest for row three.

ask your eye to tell you which sketches have more drama, which less? and do i need to alter the composition to improve the value patterns?

Try these and get back to me as I am back in the saddle again.

Ron Kasprisin AIA