Value Studies

One area of color that I really struggle with is value (relative lightness or darkness of a color). Over the past summer, I worked on a series of simple value studies to improve my skills. Since color is so complex, I started by working only in black and white.

I used basic shapes in my set ups, like eggs, light bulbs, and wooden spheres painted white etc. I premixed a value scale on my palette (series of steps from pure white to pure black) and began painting.

To some people this may seem boring or tedious. However, I highly recommend black and white studies to anyone having trouble with values.




1 comments:

  Mike Manley

December 22, 2008 at 8:11 PM

I think the black and white studies is a great way to concentrate on just the values as a specific issue. That's all I did in Mike Gallagher's class this semester and I think it helped