Stan Miller has some great lessons, such as this one. I especially like this video where he shows that if you get the values right, you can use anything around the colour wheel and make a really interesting picture.

Check out this section in The Watercolor Handbook on Values:

*Values*

Getting a Range of Tonal Values & Harmonious Colors

Natural Values of Watercolor Paints by Virgil Carter

Values by Sylvia (painterbear)

The link to the WC Handbook is at the top of The Learning Zone (and in my signature line).

Sylvia

Tom, you shouldn’t hold back so much. Tell us what you really think.

Sling paint,
Virgil

When I said that he was just using value for that painting and using any hue, I just think he was making an example of how important it is, not that it is the only important thing.

+1

Art et al,

My instructor at Monday afternoon classes is Nita Leland. She also starts her beginning watercolor students with value studies using Payne’s Gray. It is the only time she advises using that color…for the more experienced students she discourages it, saying they should mix their grays from the colors in their paintings instead.

But, for beginners, it is learning to distinguish the various values and putting them on the paper that is important.

Sylvia

I’m not sure how we are constructively helping the topic, which isn’t “values” but a value “study”.

If you break it down, a value study is a type of sketch which focuses on value, often used as a thumbnail for a finished painting. This can be in depth, or it can be vastly simplified, generally whatever works for the artist.

The usual first step in creating a painting is the vision, what are you going to paint, why, what is important, what are you looking at. Then a step often skipped is that of doing thumbnails, which are aimed at composition and placement, and the idea is to do lots of them until you “find” a strong picture, or you can choose the best of many options.

This thumbnail if used is then used to create a finished painting, yet the problem here is that a thumbnail, or worse just an idea in your head, does not let you predict if the painting is going to fail.

A value study is a step after the thumbnails, or perhaps in place of them, which lets you paint or draw a quick study which can prove if the painting itself is going to be strong. Most paintings can be reduced to simplified values, a light, midtone and dark and this can summarize their composition. There are a few exceptions which rely on color entirely to compose their message, but these are rare ( matisse keeps coming to mind ), and most artwork relies upon value far more than color, even art that seems to focus on color will also have some focus on values.

The other advantage is it locks in your idea, so you don’t have to chase the light, or that model which decided to walk away, if your subject changes you can choose to keep working from your value study.

How are they done, it’s up to you really, but one of the painters here in San Diego, his name is Jim Millard and he goes back a long way ( he mentions seeing Rex Brandt painting when he started for example ).

I’ve been using his strategy for some of my paintings, and it seems to really help, but then I am a figurative painter, doing plein air landscapes. I don’t have any photos of my thumbnails, I’ll try to take some photos later but this piece was done in this manner.

First I have a blue clipboard, looks almost just like Jim’s, then I have cut a mat which has the same proportions as my finished piece. I put marks dividing it into quarters on all sides of it, soas to transfer my sketch onto the finished painting.

I put a sheet of plain paper on the clipboard behind the mat, and do thumbnails until I find a good composition. I then can move the paper behind the mat to fine tune the design, ( which is something most wish they could do while painting ).

Once I am happy I get a piece of tracing paper, and put it on top of the sketch, then I use tombow markers to figure out where the values go. Jim uses watercolors to do the same thing and does a far more detailed value study. This isn’t about details, just where are the major shapes, and what value they should be. I keep going thru tracing paper until I find something that works.

Now if I follow the values, if the value plan is strong, then the picture will be strong regardless of colors used almost all the time. By nature of doing this, you focus on values to begin with, yet that does not mean you ignore color, rather since you already know exactly what values you are shooting for, you can focus far more on colors, either what you see or just expressive wild colors.

While working, I look at the value study as much or more than the actual subject. A copy stand or some other gadget to hold the study up as you are working is essential. Generally I just am not that skilled at values enough yet to really copy it exactly, but in “general” I’m finding that how good my pictures come out has a lot to do with how closely I was able to follow that value study.

Now value studies are up to you as an artist, some seem to do very in depth ones, I do ones more akin to Notans (which we had a very good class regarding not so long ago). There isn’t a right way, however ignoring color for a moment helps you focus on getting the values right, and it helps you plan out your composition.

I think the comment isn’t that colors don’t matter, rather if you “copy” the values right and you get the colors wrong, well you can just look at Virgils Painting, rather doubt those are the real colors. Just imagine if he “copied” the colors exactly like what he saw, and had the values completely wrong. This is very much focusing on a certain style of course which is more realistic, yet Virgils piece isn’t realism, it’s got wonderful expressive qualities to it. Generally this is intended to let an artist know they can use bright colors to paint a subject which isn’t interesting colorwise, and as long as you get the values right onlookers aren’t going to notice the colors are wrong.

It’s not that color isn’t important, it’s that value conveys different information, and via strong use of color you can save a poor composition and bad choice of values, but don’t you want to start with a strong composition and strong usage of values, and let the use of color knock what was a base hit out of the park.

Virgil, I actually like the “values” in your thumbnail better, with the darker trunks on the foreground trees, which I think would add more pop to your final product, very minor quibble of course as this is an amazing piece. This is something I do in my own work, I find I like things about the thumbnail better, or the finished piece, or in what I am actually looking at, and keep it in mind the next time I approach something similar. Often I want my final piece to have that same spontaneous feel you get in a sketch.

If you only do one version, you have no way of measuring better or worse, it just is. If you do 4 or 5 thumbnails, what you end up doing should what you think is the best of that 5. Even the value study is another version, and I even redo paintings if I don’t like how I executed them. And as you make iterations, you notice how some things get better and other things actually don’t get better. Observing this I see as a way to notice areas you need to work on.