The Value of Value Studies

Value studies are like broccoli—I know they’re good for me and will help me be a better artist, but I always want to dive into a painting without doing them first. Don’t get me wrong, I love broccoli—when I take the time to make it, ha!

One of my goals for the year is to focus on value over color, which is super hard for a color nerd like me! To make value studies more fun, I put together a little Demi Palette with just two pigments: Daniel Smith Lunar Black and Graphite Gray.

• Graphite Gray is similar to graphite from a pencil—it even has a bit of shimmer to it! I use it for my midtones in value studies.

• Lunar Black is a highly granulating color that’s also really fun to use. I use it for my darkest darks—and I can hear Maria’s voice in my mind saying to “make your darks DARK.”

Backing up a bit, let’s talk about what value, when it refers to color, actually is. Tonal value, or value for short, is just how light or dark something is. Seems simple, right? But it’s actually kind of tricky (at least to me). Some value-study references suggest using a range of 5–7 values for the big shapes in a painting, but my brain can’t handle that many. That’s why I stick to Graphite Gray for midtones, Lunar Black for dark tones, and then I try to leave the white of the paper for the lightest values in a study.

Value Study Tips

Here are three tips for value studies that have really helped me. I hope they help you, too!

Tip #1: Value vs Color

There’s a saying, “Value does all the work, but color gets all the credit,” and it’s so true.

Take a look at these two trees. I purposely tried to make the values on the green tree on the left appear wrong by making the bottom of the tree lighter than the top, so it would look like it was tipping over. Compare it with the tree on the right, where I used the wrong color but the right values.

A really fun exercise can be painting things with the wrong color but the right values, just to see how they look!

Sometimes it’s really hard to tell how light or dark something is, so I like to take a photo and convert it to black and white. You can easily do this out in the field by taking a photo with your phone. Most phones have a built-in black-and-white filter, but I use an app called Notanizer because it lets you control how many values you are looking at.

Going a step further, some colors will just never be dark. Take yellow, for example: it will always be the lightest value in a scene.

To prove it to yourself, just look at this triad in black and white. Yellow is the lightest, red is next, and blue is darkest. Here’s a triad I did with Hansa Yellow Medium, Quinacridone Rose, and Phthalo Blue using the Triad Template.

Blues are extra tricky, especially when it comes to blue skies. Reference photos will always make blue skies look darker than they actually are, but if you paint a blue sky too dark, it won’t look right at all. See the blue sky in the photos above as examples.

When I’m doing a value study, I tend to leave the sky out completely since I know it will be the lightest value in the scene.

Tip #2: BIG Brush, Small Paper

I’ve found that when doing a value study, I like to use a BIG brush and do a small sketch. This way, I’m forced to focus on the big shapes and not get lost in all the nitty-gritty little details.

Here are the color photo and the black-and-white versions, both in the Notanizer app.

Even though the app gives you a pretty clear idea of the values, it’s worthwhile to do a little study on paper so that you can play with the shapes and values. Use the biggest brush you have for this—here I’m using the Princeton Neptune 1" Mottler.

Tip #3: Get to Know Your Paints

My last tip for getting your values right is to really get to know your paints by checking their value range and value shifts.

Value Range

It’s time well spent to test out the pigments on your palette and check their value range.

Here’s my process:

1. First, I load up my brush with the darkest I can get the paint, then I make a swatch. The paint here is “honey” consistency, and it just has enough water to move on the paper.

2. Then, I dip my brush into water, swipe it along the side of the water container to remove excess water, and paint another swatch.

3. Continue the process until I run out of paint.

The longer a brush load of paint can go, the wider its value range. As you can see, some pigments like Phthalo Blue have a huge value range, while others like Yellow Ochre drop off really quickly.

Value Shift

All watercolor pigments dry lighter than when you first put them down on the paper, but some pigments have a value shift that makes them dry even lighter than expected. One of these is a favorite color of mine, Indanthrone Blue.

Hope this post convinces you of the value of value studies, and you try out these handy tips next time you practice!

Eating broccoli is optional. 😊 — Lisa

Lisa Spangler
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