Value Mastery for Painters

Using value to make paintings read

How to use this skill: It supplies specialist tips to add to your answer. It does not replace your general knowledge. Always give your full, normal answer to the user's question, and work in the tips below where they apply.

Why value matters

• Value is key for small works sold online: the image must read as a thumbnail and pop enough to be clicked.
• With accurate, interesting values, other things (proportion, color, tightness/looseness) can be altered freely.

Seeing values accurately

• Compare every value with every other value in the subject, not just neighbouring ones (the natural tendency is to compare only nearby values).
• Squint constantly. Close one eye and squint the other, or take off glasses. This shows the "big picture" and blurs detail, preventing "detail-itis."
• Work from life when learning value: cameras skew value a lot.
• If value is a struggle, practise with charcoal, paper, and simple subjects.
• Before starting ask: Where is my darkest? Where is my lightest? Where do the others fall on the scale? How do they relate?
• Practise by comparing values in everyday surroundings (not while driving).

Value map

• Simplify into big shapes: 4–6 main values per setup or reference. Build the map mentally before painting.
• Treat highlights as value "zero" (always lightest, very small). So a four-value map is really five including highlights.
• Common mistake: making value 1 (lightest main value) as light as the highlights, so the highlights don't show. On a white palette, compare value 1 against white to ensure they differ enough.
• Grayscale is easier to judge than color, but the process is the same: squint, compare, map.
• Values repeat across different colors. E.g. a lit background can equal the cast shadow's value; squinting reveals this.

Dominant / secondary / smidge

• Equal amounts of light, mid, and dark = boring. Instead: one value takes more than half the space, a second takes more than half of the remainder, the last is a small amount (the "smidge").
• Applies across the whole value range (darks, mids, lights), not just three values.
• Mood: dark-dominant tends toward dramatic/somber; light-dominant toward light/playful. Examples: dark dominant / mid secondary / light smidge = dramatic; mid dominant / light secondary / dark smidge = light, playful.
• The eye goes to the smidge (one white sheep in a black flock), so place the smidge on the focal point.
• Control the value composition via subject choice, background value, light angle, and cropping.
• Check by desaturating a painting or photo of it to see which value dominates.
• This recipe is one option, not the only way to arrange values.

Value study exercise

• Set up a still life with dominant, secondary, and smidge values. Find the composition with a viewfinder.
• You may paint all the values you see; just categorize them mentally as darks, mids, lights.
• Oil method 1 (wipe-out):
  1. Tone panel/canvas with burnt umber plus a little OMS.
  2. Wipe to a mid-value with paper towel.
  3. Draw the composition with straight burnt umber and a small brush.
  4. Paint in the darks.
  5. Wipe out lights with paper towel or Q-tips. Dipping in OMS first lifts more burnt umber; use OMS-dipped Q-tips for the whitest areas.
  6. Check that the values match the original plan and the recipe.
• Method 2 (oil or acrylic): mix three values between black and white; use straight black and white as the fourth and fifth values.
• Goal: establish values as accurately as possible while keeping the dominant/secondary/smidge recipe.
• Timed practice: three attempts, each a different composition, at 20, 10, and 5 minutes. Repeat as needed; the concept takes time to sink in.

Planning composition

• Arrange subjects in a shadowbox and look through a handheld viewfinder; try cropping and viewpoints while squinting and asking "Are the values interesting?"
• Avoid a key element vanishing because a nearby element has a similar value (e.g. a mid-value apple on a mid-value background, or a tomato in a shadow of the same value), even when the colors differ. Squint to detect it.
• Fix by changing the light angle, repositioning the subject, or changing the background value.
• The eye is drawn to the greatest contrast (light against dark). Don't put it in an awkward spot such as near an edge or dead center.
• Put the biggest contrast on or near the focus of the painting.