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Why values are so hard – and how to start getting them more right

March 9, 2015 By: Paul41 Comments

sargent-home-featured

You’ll often hear accomplished painters talking about the importance of values.

The reason is simple: value is one of the foundations of realistic drawing and painting. In fact, if you were to pressure me, I’d say it’s the foundation.

Why do artists talk about values so much?

Well, I think I know why from my own experience. Let me tell you a (very short) story.

Like a lot of aspiring artists, when I decided I wanted to improve my drawing and painting I spent a lot of time thrashing around, trying things out, and not making much progress.

I was very frustrated with my still life paintings, but didn’t know what to do to make them better. I knew there were problems, but I didn’t know what they were.

Still life of a plum.

I tried a lot of different things, but it was when I started to focus on my values that things finally started to change.

The difference was amazing:

Light came into my paintings, together with depth and form. The things I painted started looking real. I also found that if the values were good, I could be as loose as I liked with the paint, and the picture would still work. In fact, the looser I painted, the better it looked.

That’s the real secret of Sargent’s famous bravura brushwork – it works because he gets his value relationships right.

What is Value?

Just in case you’re confused about what I mean when I say “values”, I’ll give you a quick definition:

Value is the lightness or darkness of a colour, from black at one end of the scale to white at the other.

If you’re drawing with charcoal, you’re working with value. If you take all the colour out of a picture and reduce it to greys, you’re looking at the values of the picture.

If you want to read about what I did to improve my values, it starts here. Read that first post, then the five others linked from it at the bottom of the page.

Why you should care about your values

Value control gives you almost – almost – everything you need to create convincing pictures. And also beautiful ones:

1. Value creates light, form and visual depth.

Even very simple pictures that are built only on value and nothing else can still have all these three things. This simple value study was done only in neutral grey paint. Hopefully you’ll agree, it has visual depth, a feeling of the solidity of the form of the objects, and a convincing feeling of light. All that, with no colour at all:

cp-6b-half

2. Value is a key part of a good composition.

Muddy, unclear values give you a befuddled and confused composition. Clear, strong value statements give you pattern and design. You achieve this by simplifying your values. Here’s a quote from Andrew Loomis:

“If you base your pictures on big basic truths and understanding you will do good ones. If you sit and putter with effects, allowing yourself to guess rather than going out to find the truths you want, you will do bad ones.”

Make strong, accurate value statements and you will make strong pictures.

Once you have a clear idea of how value works as part of colour, you can use value to create powerful pictures. Here’s a great example from Monet. Look how the sun appears to glow in this painting:

impression-soleil-levant

But here it is again with the colour removed.

Monet, Impression Soleil - Levant, greyscaleThe sun has all but disappeared. It works because the value of the colour of the sun is exactly the same as the value of the sky behind it, creating a strong optical vibration. The hues are complimentary, which is what gives it that visual shimmer. But if the values weren’t the same, the effect would be lost.You can try this out for yourself in this clever demonstration.

So why are values so hard to get right?

There are two main reasons:

First, our brains lie to us about the values we see.

There are two ways of looking at value, the local and the perceived value.The local value is the value something is. If you were to paint a cube grey, the local value is the value of the paint you use.Perceived value is the value that a side of that cube appears depending on how much light is falling on it.Now, that might seem simple enough. But it’s very difficult to judge a perceived value accurately, because our brain has a strong tendency to make us paint the local value, instead of the perceived value. It’s that old left brain getting in the way again.Here’s a good demonstration of it:

A demonstration of perceved value

Both of those two strips are painted with three values, white, black and mid grey half way between white and black. Both strips have been painted with exactly the same local values. But look how different the values appear. The value we see changes depending on how much light is falling on the surface we’re looking at.Now, your brain knows that the two white squares on those strips are the same local value on each strip. But look how different they really appear when you take them out of context and put them side by side – the two little squares superimposed on the top left.Try this: look at the lower of the two little squares on the top left of the picture. Now look at the white square on the bottom strip. No mater how much you try to convince yourself that they are the same value, the square on the strip at the bottom of the picture appears lighter. Your brain knows it “is” white.The same is true of the mid grey value in the centre of each strip. Left to your own devices, you’d assume that the two mid grey squares are much closer in value than they actually are if you take them out of context.

When this happens, it makes it very hard to judge values by eye. So don’t feel bad if you’ve been struggling with it.

Second, the range of our materials, from the darkest dark to the lightest light, is narrower than the range of values we see.

You can test this pretty easily yourself, I’ll show you how in a moment.

How to get your values more right

So let’s start taking some simple steps to start seeing value better.

First, you need to find a way to override your brain’s tendency to label by the local. Here’s how:

Step 1

Get yourself a colour isolator. A colour isolator is just a small, square piece of grey card with a hole in the middle. Make the piece of card about 5 centimetres along each side, with the hole about 2 centimetres along each side.

Step 2

Now, make a value scale. You can make yourself a three-step value scale really easily, but if you want to go the whole hog, here’s a couple of videos showing how to make a 9 step value scale with oils.

I did these videos a while ago and they’re a bit rough and ready, but they take you through making a 9-step value scale in detail.

Part One:

Part Two:

Step 3

Now, go around your house and start finding out what values you’re actually seeing. Hold your scale and your isolator up in front of a few things and see what the value is, like this:

Using a colour isolator and a value scale to judge value

The value scale in the picture above is from Liquitex, a grandly titled Liquitex ยฎ Value Finder. You can sometimes get them from Amazon, but it’s easy to just make your own scale – and excellent practice too.

Some of the values you find might surprise you! Try scanning across a white wall and see how much the value changes.

In the picture above, I’m holding the scale and isolator up in front of a white wall in half shadow. The value it appears is a mid value, a value 5 on that Liquitex scale.

Step 4

Next, try match a few of the values you see in charcoal or pencil, then holding the little value swatches you draw up against the value you tried to match to test them.

This step is important because it starts to tune your brain into seeing values as they really appear to you, and translating those values into drawing. It really helps you to begin overriding that powerful, labelling left brain.

Getting Values More Right

Once you try this simple exercise, you’ll probably realise quite quickly that you can use this simple combination of an isolator and a value scale to help you get your values more right when you’re actually painting, or drawing.

I’ll be covering how to do that in a future post.

If you find yourself struggling with value (and everybody does) hopefully this post has given you an idea of why, and also how you can take a small – but very effective – step in starting to see value more accurately.

Because it starts with seeing value better, and for that you need eye training.

It starts – and ends – with learning to see.

Best wishes, and thanks for reading,

Paul

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About Paul

I'm a (mostly) self-taught artist. I paint realism in oils, mostly still life. I share my work, my evolving process and what knowledge I've gained on my own learning journey here, in the hope that it might help you along on
yours.

Comments

  1. 1

    Gina Murrow says

    March 9, 2015 at 4:32 pm

    Thanks for the encouragement for art training with a really good (and doable) exercise. I’ll try it today.

    Reply
  2. 2

    jesus estevez says

    March 9, 2015 at 5:13 pm

    Very good, I love it.

    Reply
  3. 3

    Anshuman says

    March 9, 2015 at 5:14 pm

    Thanks a lot. Huge admirer of your posts and work. Keep inspiring us.

    Reply
  4. 4

    Vitรƒยณria Marques says

    March 9, 2015 at 5:34 pm

    Thanks a lot

    Reply
  5. 5

    Paul says

    March 9, 2015 at 6:52 pm

    Glad you liked the idea for the exercise Gina – please feel free to email me if you have any questions about it whilst you’re doing it. I’d be really interested to hear how you find it, too.

    Reply
  6. 6

    Paul says

    March 9, 2015 at 6:54 pm

    Thanks Jesus – there’s more coming like this soon, I’m doing a lot of thinking about value and how it can be learned more effectively at the moment.

    Reply
  7. 7

    Paul says

    March 9, 2015 at 6:55 pm

    Anshuman, thanks for the encouragement! I’ll certainly do my best.

    Reply
  8. 8

    Paul says

    March 9, 2015 at 6:56 pm

    Maria-Vitรƒยณria, always lovely to hear fro you! Hope everything is well with you.

    Reply
    • 9

      ADRIANA says

      January 25, 2016 at 6:48 pm

      PABLITO ESTE TEMA QUE ES TAN IMPORTANTE MIL GRACIAS SIEMPRE HABIA LUCHADO POR ENTENDER ACERCA D E ESTE TEMA PONDRE EN PRACTICA TUS CONSEJOSSERIA MUY BUENO QUE TU LO EXPICARA EN UNA VIDEO CONFERENCIA CON UN DIBUJO EN GRISES Y DESPUES PASAR EL MISMO DIBUJO A COLOR SERIA FABULOSO

      Reply
  9. 10

    Alessandro says

    March 9, 2015 at 8:05 pm

    Hi Paul, I find your lessons very valuable and right for didactic use and I am following costantly this blog. I am an italian painter and a teacher of drawing and painting in my atelier. I write a Blog on drawing and painting http://www.circolodarti.com for italian people. I like very much this tutorial so I would like to translate it in italian and publish the article in Italian on circolodarti.com. Of course I will give the credits to you and will put links at your blog.
    Many thanks for your attention and for the very interesting articles that you share.

    Reply
  10. 11

    Paul says

    March 9, 2015 at 8:13 pm

    Hi Alessandro, you’re more than welcome to publish it on your site, thanks for asking. I hope your students find it useful – I’d be happy to answer any questions they might have about it.

    Reply
  11. 12

    Dee Jochen says

    March 9, 2015 at 8:17 pm

    I have appreciated all that you share so generously. I have thought seriously about signing up for your online teaching; 2 things stop me. I am not on Paypal, so could not send you $1 for first month. Oh, 3 things, as I live in USA. Also, I am a tapestry weaver, not painter, so only parts of class would apply.

    Just want you to know you aren’t dropping your generous sharing into an empty void. I read it all.
    Best wishes.

    Reply
  12. 13

    Paul says

    March 9, 2015 at 8:51 pm

    Thank you Dee! You’re right, only parts of it would apply. However, you might like to get hold of Composition by Arthur Wesley Dow, if you search google for it you’ll find a (legal) free download on archive.org. I think you’d find that very useful, all of it ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
  13. 14

    Blake Kritzberg says

    March 9, 2015 at 9:31 pm

    I subscribe to a fair number of blogs and am always happily surprised if one decent things comes out of the investment of reading one. This is in a whole different class — really beautiful thinking. Thanks for the exercise and value chart and the fantastic link to that impressionism values site.

    Reply
  14. 15

    Paul says

    March 9, 2015 at 9:39 pm

    Thank you very much Blake!

    Reply
  15. 16

    Judy says

    March 10, 2015 at 8:54 am

    Thanks again! Excellent as usual.

    Reply
  16. 17

    Paul says

    March 10, 2015 at 9:01 am

    Thanks Judy, glad you liked it.

    Reply
  17. 18

    Sean Molloy says

    March 10, 2015 at 11:18 am

    Hi Paul,

    Thanks for the Value exercises, they’re invaluable (pardon the pun).

    You’re providing a great service to painters at every level of competency, training the eye is a life-long project for me, so thank you again.

    All the best,

    Sean

    Reply
  18. 19

    Mike Porter says

    March 10, 2015 at 4:49 pm

    Liked this so much I sent it to my wc teacher! When you quoted Sargent, you hooked me right there!

    Reply
  19. 20

    Paul says

    March 10, 2015 at 8:27 pm

    You’re absolutely right Sean, it *is* a lifelong project. I don’t believe there ever comes a time when you can say you’ve finished – and actually, I think that’s one of the greatest joys of making art. There’s always more to learn.

    Thanks for the kind words.

    Reply
  20. 21

    Paul says

    March 10, 2015 at 8:28 pm

    Thanks Mike – I’ll see if I can dig up some more Sargent quotes for future posts, special for you ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
  21. 22

    gale costa says

    March 11, 2015 at 12:22 am

    Paul, I have tried to print this out, but the letters get all jumbled up. if you sent it to my office email, I think it might work. thanks

    Reply
  22. 23

    Hicaro says

    March 11, 2015 at 9:42 am

    Paul, this is incredible! Thank very much for this material. I started to learn about values two weeks ago and I’m still struggling with it. I’m always looking for tutorials on internet and this is one of the best explanations I came across. Now I need to exercise values.

    I did this drawing (a skull): http://kiddolink2.deviantart.com/art/Skull6-518773662?q=gallery%3Akiddolink2%2F53327760&qo=0 with digital media. What do you think? Could you please give me a critique about values? I would appreciate! If you can’t, no problem. Thank you very much for this post!

    P.S: here have more skulls that I drew: http://kiddolink2.deviantart.com/gallery/53327760/SKulls (I believe my progress is slow but steady. I hope to improve. This idea about a lifelong learning project is appealing to me) I know I should practice more traditional art, but my schedule is tight, so digital works for me.

    Reply
  23. 24

    Paul says

    March 12, 2015 at 10:42 am

    Hi Gale,

    I’ve made a PDF of the post and emailed it to you, that should be a bit more user friendly ๐Ÿ™‚

    If anyone else would like a PDF of this, just leave a comment here and I’ll send it over.

    Reply
  24. 25

    Paul says

    March 12, 2015 at 10:45 am

    Hi HIcaro,

    I’m afraid I don’t have the time to do personal crits for people, sorry. But if you want to improve your values, here’s what I’d suggest: look up the posts I’ve linked to above referencing the exercises I did with cubes and spheres to learn about values. Do some of those, and I guarantee you your values will improve.

    It doesn’t matter whether you use digital or traditional media, the fundamentals of value are the same. Make sure your subjects are drawn from life, however, not form imagination. You need to learn how value appears in the real world if you want to be able to translate that into convincing drawings and paintings – or media files ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
  25. 26

    Erin says

    March 13, 2015 at 1:51 am

    Thanks, Paul! The Venetian artists of the Renaissance would begin their oil paintings by making a black-white-gray value equivalent on the canvas, which was then built up with color glazes. This post will be a big help! ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
  26. 27

    Peter says

    March 15, 2015 at 9:39 pm

    What about when you go outside to paint.
    I see it more relating to whats on the canvas ( how it’s keyed)
    Let say ur canvas warm light tone to kill the white then everything has to relate to that in terms of value. Decide what’s the lightest light in the scene and make that the same value as the toned canvas . Work from there middle slightly darker and darks .

    Reply
  27. 28

    Nate says

    April 21, 2015 at 11:52 am

    Paul, I used to love drawing but have been out of it for several years now. Every time I try to start back up I look at my end product and can’t help but feel like I have lost a large portion of what skill used to have. Is it too late for me or can I retrain myself to see things the way I used too.

    Reply
    • 29

      Paul says

      April 22, 2015 at 11:24 am

      Hi Nate,

      It’s never too late to retrain. The old adage about old dogs and new tricks has been conclusively disproved by modern neuroscience. Look up ‘brain plasticity’ on google. It’s never too late to learn new skills or to develop the ones we have further.

      In fact, it’s a really healthy thing to do. It will keep you young ๐Ÿ™‚

      But I know exactly what you mean. When I came back to art after a long gap I was horrified at the quality (or lack of it) of my work.

      My advice would be to practice a little every day, or as near to that as you can manage. Practice the fundamentals – drawing accuracy, values and design (composition) and you’ll never go far wrong.

      If you have a look in the “practice” category on this site, there’s a post in there with six simple exercises to get you started and practising the right things. Have a look at that. Email me on paul@learning-to-see.co.uk if you have any questions about those exercises.

      Good luck! And don’t forget to enjoy the journey.

      Reply
  28. 30

    Maria says

    June 10, 2015 at 1:19 pm

    Thank you very much for this article! it’s been a real eye opener as I can now see that this is what’s kept me from improving. I’m not good with values and always tried to “skip” that part of the learning process as I found it boring and tedious, but actually it’s very necessary as it is what’s been keeping my drawings from having some depth and realness. I get very easily discouraged and not being able to know what the problem was, made me spent long periods of time without drawing when I couldn’t achieve the results I wanted. But now that I realized that my problem is with value, I will start working on that.
    So will have a look at the posts you linked and see how it goes. I’m really glad I found your blog as a few of your articles have helped me to decide to give drawing another go.

    Reply
    • 31

      Paul says

      June 10, 2015 at 6:29 pm

      That’s great Maria. Please feel free to email me – paul@learning-to-see.co.uk if you have any questions about it. Value is one of my favourite things to talk about ๐Ÿ™‚

      Reply
      • 32

        Maria says

        June 11, 2015 at 10:40 am

        Thank you Paul. I’ll probably end up with lots of questions as value kind of “scares” me! I’ll note down your email, thank you very much.

        Reply
        • 33

          Paul says

          June 11, 2015 at 12:15 pm

          You’re welcome ๐Ÿ™‚

          Reply
  29. 34

    Ewan McNaughton says

    June 23, 2015 at 9:27 pm

    A very clear explanation of a slightly complex but massively important part of drawing and painting. Nicely done!

    Reply
    • 35

      Paul says

      June 24, 2015 at 3:56 pm

      Thanks very Much Ewan, glad you liked it.

      Reply
  30. 36

    F.U says

    March 2, 2016 at 10:40 am

    Hi. I want to thank your blog. It is of great help to me. This very well explained.
    Thank you very much
    . I would like to ask you for the use of chroma.En a landscape, for example could I paint planes with different values and each value corresponding chromas develop?
    Could I paint a complete picture, from foreground to background, with low chroma?

    Thank you very Much

    Reply
    • 37

      Paul says

      March 3, 2016 at 12:00 pm

      Yes, of course you can paint an entire picture in low chroma. Drawing is exactly that – no chroma, and value drawings work perfectly well ๐Ÿ™‚

      Look at almost any painting by Whistler to see how low chroma can still produce beautiful work if the values are handled well, and also many paintings by Sargent or Zorn. Zorn in particular often painted with a very limited palette.

      But I’d advise you to try to match the chromas you see as much as you can, painting directly from nature. That will teach you more than anything else about colour, and I think you’ll find that chroma in nature is often much lower than you might think.

      Reply
  31. 38

    Mandy says

    November 3, 2018 at 6:15 am

    This is incredibly helpful info on a subject that I’ve never been able to begin to grasp. Thank you so much!

    Reply
    • 39

      Paul says

      November 7, 2018 at 10:34 am

      That’s great to hear, thanks Mandy!

      Reply
  32. 40

    ciccio says

    January 23, 2021 at 11:20 pm

    Great post, but your site has been hacked. Reading about values one finds herself learning of… pills?

    Reply
    • 41

      Paul says

      January 24, 2021 at 4:58 pm

      Thanks Ciccio, I wish I knew how that happened! I’ve deleted the spam.

      Reply

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Hi, I’m Paul

I'm a (mostly) self-taught artist. I paint realism in oils, mostly still life. I share my work, my evolving process and what knowledge I've gained on my own learning journey here, in the hope that it might help you on yours.
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