drawspace-8.2.R3

This tutorial has three sections:• Identifying the Values of Basic

Colors• Examining Values in Single

Colors• Exploring Values in a Realistic

Painting

Identifying the Values of Basic ColorsYou can paint or draw a subject with hundreds of different colors, but without an intrinsic or learned understanding of values, your artwork can’t look realistic.

Realism in a color medium demands a wide range of values from light to dark.

The different values of the colors within the light and shadow sections of an object visually define its shapes and forms.

Seeing the Values of Colors

A richly-illustrated introduction to the most important skill for painting or drawing in color

Level: Beginner to IntermediateFlesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 8.6Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease: 63.6Drawspace Curriculum 8.2.R3 - 8 Pages and 19 Illustrations

ArtSpeak

Color: The visual qualities of objects based on individual perceptions of their hues and values. Basic colors include: yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, and green. Realism: A style of art in which living beings and objects are represented in an artwork as they appear in real life without stylization or distortion. Values of colors: The intrinsic lightness or darkness of a specific color. For example, a soft pastel yellow has a light value and a deep midnight blue has a dark value. In painting, dark colors can be mixed with white to create lighter values (colors).Value scale: A range of different values that are rendered in order from light to dark or from dark to light.Highlight: A small section of a drawing subject that is rendered with white or a very light value to identify the brightest area where light bounces off its surface. Highlights are more pronounced on shiny or glistening surfaces than dull or matte surfaces.Shadow: A dark area on an object or living being that receives little to no light. Low contrast: A drawing or painting created with a limited range of values.

ISBN: 978-1-77193-150-2Copyright © 2015 Drawspace Publishing and Brenda Hoddinott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transferred, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including

electronic, digital, mechanical, recording, photographing, photocopying, or otherwise, without the purchase of a licence from drawspace.com or the prior written consent of Brenda Hoddinott and Drawspace Publishing.

2 Drawspace Curriculum 8.2.R3: Seeing the Values of Colors

You’re likely already familiar with a grayscale value scale (Figure 1). The next step is to recognize values in colors.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Challenge!

Examine ten different colors (Figure 2) and identify which color is the lightest in value and which is the darkest. Then arrange all ten colors by value, from the lightest to the darkest. You may want to assign each color a letter or number so you can write down your answers. If you need a little help, Figure 3 illustrates the same ten colors when translated into grayscale.When you are done, check out Figure 4 (on the next page) to find out which colors are actually darker or lighter than others. As you might have guessed, yellow is the lightest, and royal blue is the darkest. Surprisingly, some colors are almost identical in value ‒ when used beside one another in a painting, their values appear similar.

ArtSpeak

Values: The various shades of gray in an artwork. A broad range of values can be achieved by using various grades of a medium and by varying the density of the shading lines and the pressure used when applying the medium to a surface.Complementary colors: A set of two colors that are directly opposite one another on a color wheel (such as red and green, yellow and purple, and orange and blue.) When placed beside one other, these colors seem brighter and more vibrant. Key: The overall amount of light and dark values in an artwork.Low-key: An artwork with a range of mostly medium and dark values that often appears ominous or moody (think of low levels of light). High-key: An artwork with a limited range of values that are mostly medium and light (think of high levels of light). Even the shadows and dark areas are often shaded with medium values rather than dark.



3Drawspace Curriculum 8.2.R3: Seeing the Values of Colors

Seeing the values of colors is much more challenging than seeing values in grayscale. The only way to train your eye to recognize the values of colors is to practice drawing or painting with color. In the beginning, it’s mostly guesswork.

Examining Values in Single ColorsEvery color in the universe (except white) can become either a light, medium, or dark value in a value scale. For example, Figure 5 shows a value scale of all light values. The yellow from Figure 4 (on the far right) is now the darkest in a scale of nine different values. However, the values/colors are very similar.

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

Conversely, if you take the royal blue (the darkest value in Figure 4) and make it the lightest color in a value scale, many of the resulting colors are also similar (Figure 6).

Technically, any color can be broken down into an infinite range of values from very light to almost black. However, there’s little point in using colors that are so similar that the human eye cannot discern one from another.



Figure 7

The key to drawing realistically with color is to use a full range of values from very light to very dark, as with the greens in Figure 7.

Compare Figures 8 and 9. A full value scale of any color (plus black and white) can achieve the illusion of three-dimensional reality as well as a full value scale of black (called a grayscale).

When drawing with color, values are definitely more important than the chosen colors.

Examine variations of the same dagger drawing with limited ranges of values (Figure 10).

Each still looks like a dagger – just not quite as realistic or three-dimensional as those in Figures 8 and 9.

Figure 10

Figure 8 Figure 9




In addition to using a full range of values from light to dark, you can create a less dramatic, three-dimensional reality using a range of:

• all light values plus medium values (high-key).

• all dark values plus medium values (low-key).

Caution!

If you try to render a realistic color artwork with a range of values that are all light, all medium, or all dark, you might be disappointed. A very limited range of values can’t create the illusion of a realistic three-dimensional reality.

Exploring Values in a Realistic PaintingIn this section, a few areas of a photo-realistic oil painting (Figure 11) show how a full range of values in mixed colors can create the illusion of a three-dimensional reality.

Most color media requires some colors to be mixed together in order to create a realistic artwork.

Wet media, such as acrylic or oil paint, are usually mixed with a brush or palette knife before they are applied to the surface.

Dry media, such as chalk pastels or colored pencils, are usually applied to the surface in layers to mix the colors.

No matter which medium or colors you choose, you still need to use a range of values from light to dark.

Figure 11




Here’s a trick question: what color are the white polka dots in her bathing suit?

Hint: not white!

The dots that are in the bright sunlight are light in value but not white. Those in shadow sections are made up of light to medium values.

The skin colors in Figure 12 are a value scale of ten different mixed colors, from very light to very dark. Each skin tone has been assigned a number from 1 to 10.

Examine the close up view of a section of the painting (Figure 13) and then compare each value to its corresponding number in Figure 12.

As most of the arm is in sunlight, the values range from light to medium (1 to 6). The section of her upper leg that’s in shadow is painted with darker values (7 to 10).

As an Aside

I rarely use pure white in my paintings and never use black (I don’t even own a tube of black paint).

Figure 12 Figure 13

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Compare the numbered sections in the close up of the bathing suit (Figure 14) to a value scale of the colors used for the polka dots (Figure 15).

As you can see, the polka dot colors are mostly a mixture of white and a little yellow, red, and/or blue.

Even the lightest value (1) is very light but not white.

The other three values have identifiable colors, yellow (2), pink (3), and light brown (4).

As a final demonstration of values in color, examine the “pink” bathing suit.

Most of the colors used are not actually pink – yet, if you look at the complete painting (Figures 11 and 18), the full visual effect is a bathing suit that appears pink.

The nine bathing suit colors (created with three primary colors plus white) range in value from light to dark (Figure 16).

Compare the value scale of colors to the close-up section of the bathing suit (Figure 17).

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Figure 16 Figure 17

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The two most important things to remember when creating color in art are:

1. Colors are not always simple. If you use pure colors just as they are – either in a tube of paint or in a colored pencil – then you’ll be very disappointed with the resulting work. Colors need to be mixed with one other to achieve realistic colors/values.

2. Values are much more important than color. Whether a bathing suit is blue, purple, or pink, you need to focus more on values than colors.

Figure 18

Figure 19

Tip!

A highlight appears brighter when contrasted with the color that’s opposite it on the color wheel (complementary). For example, if the iris of an eye is blue, a very tiny bit of orange (complementary to blue) added to the white makes the highlight appear brighter.

Tip!

To make good use of the values of colors, take black-and-white photos or scans of your color artworks in progress, and assess how your values are working. For example, compare the original painting in color (Figure 18) to the version in grayscale (Figure 19). As you can see, the subject appears three-dimensional in both versions.




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