How Do We Use Values in Painting?

Color is fun, but using values in painting is fundamental for successful artwork.

Values are the backbone of strong, attractive paintings!

Using my own paintings for examples, let's explore how to see values, the best place for contrasting values, how to adjust values and planning them for your art.

Values create strong paintings.

What Are Values In Painting?

Values are the light and darkness of colors.

How Do We See Values?

Artists train themselves to see values.

We learn to see the light and dark in our subjects by squinting our eyes and then look. The details disappear and we see the light and dark tones.

Check out the values in this ocean painting.

Squint your eyes and look.

The grayscale shows the values of the painting.

Did you see this?

Lower your eyelids and look at the things around your room. Notice the light and darkness of different things in the room. Train your eyes to see the light and dark values of things around you.

Look when you are going down the road - as a passenger of course. Things will suddenly become more alive as you observe the values.

Duplicate the values you see into your paintings. It makes painting exciting!

Ladies you may not want squint lines, so instead of squinting just lower your eyelids.

Or you can see values by looking through red cellophane.

In the 1980s, I started using red cellophane from the dime store secured in a cardboard frame made from a cereal box.

My homemade value viewer

Today, I still use it to check the values while I'm painting. It's very handy to use instead of squinting. There's more about artist Carol May.

Try This Quick Value Study

Quick Start - Value study: (10 minutes)

Choose a simple object lit by a lamp or window (to create shadows).
On a small scrap of paper, block in only 3 values: light, middle, dark.
Don’t draw details, just big shapes of light and shadow.

Step back and look: does the object feel 3D and clear, even without color?

Even small improvements in values can improve our paintings.

The Best Place to Use Values in a Painting

The focal area is the place to use our lightest lights and darkest values. A strong contrast of lights and darks will automatically draw our eyes to the focal point.

As much as I love color, a painting must have good contrast and a variety of values to be successful.

Look at the barn painting below:

The back barn is the focal point of the painting.
Its bright wall is the lightest value.
The dark door creates good contrast.

Use contrasting values while painting landscapes.

The focal area uses high contrast.

The gray-scale shows the contrast in the focal area of the painting.

See the contrast in the grayscale.

The contrast of the values, saturated colors, soft and hard edges plus detail are all tools we use in painting a focal point.

Artists use any or all of these items to create the focal point in paintings.

Why Are Colors Different Values?

Different colors absorb and reflect different amounts of light.

The more light a color reflects - the lighter its value. Colors that absorb a lot of light are dark values.

Artist color wheel

Gray-scale of a color wheel

Yellow reflects light more than any other color. Lots of light bounces back off yellow. That makes yellow look light because of all the light that shines into our eyes.

Purple or violet is the darkest color. It absorbs most of the light rays that shine on it. Very little light bounces back to us. So, purple looks very dark.

The value scale in art has nine steps of gray between white and black.

Yellow is #1 and Purple is #9 on the value scale.

All the other colors fall in-between 1 and 9 on the nine-point value scale.

Why Does My Painting Look Flat?

We all want successful paintings. But a painting with all the same values will look very flat.

Without a distinct difference between light and dark values, we could not see any forms or shapes - no matter how many colors we use in the painting.

We can use a lot of color in our paintings.

This painting uses lots of color.

Values make the structure of the painting.

The values make it work.

Planning Values for a Painting

A good painting starts with a plan.

How to plan values in the composition of a painting.

Vary the size and value of each area.

Repetition is boring, so make each part of the painting a different size and a different value.

The elephant is the largest and basically the darkest element.
The background is medium sized and a light, contrasting value.
The foreground is the smallest area with a mixture of medium values.

We don't have to use all nine values in every painting, but concentrate on getting at least three different values into the painting.

Make sure there is a definite contrast in the values. That's what makes an attractive painting.

Good composition uses variety.

How Do We Adjust Values for Painting?

We may of course use different colors to get different values.

But we can adjust the value of colors. There are three ways to adjust the value of a color.

These three techniques adjusted the values in the painting below.

The ways to adjust the values in painting.

Three ways to adjust the values.

Add white to create tints to raise the value. The colors in the mane were tinted with white to lighten their values.
Add black to create shades that lower the value. The value of the background was shaded with a black to lower the value.
Mix a color with its compliment to subdue the color and lower its value. Orange was subdued with its blue complement to create the shadows.

The gray-scale in the image shows the effect of the three value adjustments.

Do Artists Have to Follow the Rules?

Artists have the freedom of color. There is no rule that says a person has to paint something its actual, natural color. Color is a wonderful gift from God that makes painting lots of fun!

A painting works as long as we use values.

Dolphins in nature are actually gray. Plain old gray is boring to me, as an artist. So, I painted these dolphins pink and purple instead of gray.

The values made the painting work, regardless of what colors were used.

Artists can paint imagined colors as long as the values work.

Artists don't have to paint natural colors.

Gray-scale showing the values of the dolphin painting.

The values make the painting work.

Use Values in Your Next Painting!

Painting is Fun!

Painting with a Limited Palette: Master Color Harmony
Discover the art of painting with a limited palette. Tune in to color harmony & craft a fun, colorful, harmonious step-by-step painting with only four colors.
Focal Point in Paintings: How to Attract the Viewers
You can create a focal point in art. A complete guide of proven techniques using contrast, color and composition for attractive paintings to engage the viewers.
Principles of Art: Use Them with the Elements of Art
Create successful paintings using the elements and principles of art. Pleasing compositions are made using any combination of the 7 elements and 10 principles.
How to Paint Good Art: Fundamentals Create Awesome Art
Painting good art begins with the fundamentals; composition, focal point, color and values. See them in my painting with a checklist for assessing your art.
Meaning of Color: Using Symbolic Significance in Art
Use the meaning of color, color symbolism and how color influences the viewers' emotions and perceptions to empower your paintings with the right color choices.