"Paintings With Personality"

This is a watercolor collage. 22x30 inches. I call her "Vibrant, Gutsy and Bold" because of the words collaged on her sleeve. I had the best time working on this painting. It was abstract, fun and totally exciting.

Some years ago (I won’t say how many), I realized I couldn’t see as good as I had in the past. The optometrist recommended glasses and wrote a prescription. When the glasses arrived, I put them on and was amazed at how big everything looked. I took them off and put them back on a few times before asking, “Are things really big, or are they small? Which size is real?” These days, I put my glasses on to keep things from being so blurry.

We see when light bounces off objects and enters our eyes, and our brains process and make sense of the light coming in. Painters need to understand how light works and how it reacts on different surfaces. If the values in a painting are wrong it will be flat and lifeless.

There are quite a few artists who have difficulty seeing value, and can’t get the values in their art right. Value is simply light (tint) and dark (shade). It sounds easy, but the ability to see value has to be learned and then translated onto a two dimensional surface. Seeing value requires letting go of what we know and looking for something else.

Below, I have listed 6 easy methods painters can utilize in order to see value:

1. When you look at a subject, ignore all colors, shapes and textures, pretend they aren’t there. Squinting and looking through your eye lashes helps. You will see fuzzy shadows instead of colors and shapes. Look for borders or edges to find the value differences. Practice doing this daily and you will train your eyes to see values and shapes.
2. Look for three distinct values, light, middle and dark in the scene. Be aware of the highlights, light, shadow, core shadow, reflected light, and cast shadows.
3. Hold up a value scale as you squint. Compare it to your scene and find the lightest lights and darkest darks in the subject. You’ll soon learn to tell the difference between the middle value grays when you measure them against the black and white on the value scale.
4. Look at everything, what are the values? Simplify by putting similar values together to make as few shapes as possible. You can also change the values to improve your painting. Many painters place the lightest and darkest values in the most important area, changing to the middle value range as they get farther away from the subject.
5. Use a digital camera and take a black and white photo of the scene. Look at the image on the LCD screen. Or, if you’re working from a photo, use your computer to remove the color, so all you see are the values. Now all you will have to deal with are the shapes, colors and textures when you paint.
6. Buy red and green filters to look through, or a gray scale and value finder from your art supply store. The red filter works on all colors but red, and the green on all colors but cool.

It is important to do value studies, especially if you have difficulty seeing values and shapes. Value gives representational work form and depth, and helps leads the eye around the painting in non-representational or abstract paintings. If your painting looks flat, the values are probably wrong.

Do you have any other ways to help painters see value? Later, Judy

www.judyballance.com