The word “value” has many meanings. However, in the art world it is simply means how light or dark something is. Value, in art, is usually identified using a scale from 1 to 10, where value 1 is the lightest, usually pure white, and value 10 is the darkest, usually all black. For a painting to be successful in realism it’s more important to get your values right than your color. For realist painters or anyone trying to portray something as representational, the correct placement and value of each stroke is what creates the structure and the three-dimensional effect required. For abstract artists, sometimes a successful work is just about an idea or feeling, and for realists, we need to know how to use values to show form.

 

I’ve heard and I believe that “value does all the work, and color gets all the credit” in a painting. Value helps to create the structure, depth and the volume in a work, and has much to do with the success of the painting, yet people focus more on the emotional and aspect that color can deliver. It’s also maybe more exciting! But values exist within a color as well. For this article, it is just easier to show you value first in black and white (with a few shades of gray). We need to walk before we can run. Once you see how important it is to know and recognize different value levels for your work, you will start to see them in everything and therefore train your eye to becoming a better artist. 

Let’s dive into how values work for an artist and how to recognize and appreciate them in art for both artists and collectors!

Lights, Darks and Values

Showing Light Source and Basics

Drawing is the first part of creating a realistic subject, and this means simply creating the right shapes in the right place. In making a line drawing more real, we can use different values (or tones) of gray shading to help suggest volume. Here, I remind you of how the basic drawing elements work on a still life as shown on the apple illustration below. You can see where the light source is coming from and how I’ve shaded in basic lights and darks according to the rules, so that the apple reads as a real object. This is an important aspect to understand before mixing your paint.

 

Four Shades of Gray Values

Now, to take it further to create volume and form, in my basic painted apple these four simple values of gray are starting to show depth and volume. To create a three-dimensional looking apple, we simply shade, or lay in simple values following the light source on the apple, similar to a drawing. Underneath the object there is no light, so values 8 and 9, and on the top of the object there is the lightest values 2 and 3. In between dark and light are the mid-tones of gray. Following the basic theory of light we “know” the apple will be lighter on the left and darker on the right, but by looking intently we notice and can try to capture the subtle change of values as it turns. The more subtle and more added changes in value, the more defined realism we can achieve.

With more shades of gray close to one another and transitional light to dark values added, you can tell a clearer, sharper story as the realists do.

 

Two-value Proof

With either medium of charcoal or paint, you can already start to achieve a realistic effect with just one or two values on an object if the shapes are also correct and in the right place. Using charcoal, I created the image here of the girl laying down with basically two values: the value of the paper which is about a 2 or 3 and the value of the blended charcoal mass which is about a 5. The design and form are already working and create two strong value statements without yet rendering the form out. Limited use of values in art creates works that are simple and more graphic, rather than about volume or three-dimensionality, but there is much beauty in that already.

Color is Value Too

Still Life of Lemons

As I mention earlier, there is value within each color on the canvas. To help illustrate this, look at the young lemons painted in color and the same exact painting turned into only black and white, with the help of Photoshop. Notice the change in values and what color value is on the yellow version as it turns from light to dark. Notice also how the tiny green one on the left front is mostly dark values between 7 and 9, while the main lemons have a broad range of values from 2 to 9. You will need to learn to manipulate your values along with color.

A good way to learn is by copying these works shown, first in black and white only, then translating to color.

 

Landscapes

Just like with the lemons above, these two images (below) are the same exact work of art. The black and white version shows the values in the painting and how it already reads well, without the need of color. Start to look at works of art in this manner. In a landscape the highest contrast of lights and darks will be at the front of the painting by the rocks and breaking wave, as in real life you notice high contrasts in front of you, not far away. You will have value 8 next to a value 2 for example. But in the back of the painting on the cliff as it recedes, the values will be lower on the scale, lighter, closer together with less contrast and less clarity. That is how artists show atmospheric perspective in landscapes, by using limited values. I’ve painted most of the cliff hill in the distance with values 2 and 3 in very slightly different hues, which pushes them back into the distance. There is no strong contrast between value or color. You will get used to looking at values and recognizing them in this way now that you know how.

 

Simple Values (see images on opposite page)

Using four tubes of paint—ivory black, yellow ochre, cadmium red and titanium white—I painted Anders Zorn, a famed Swedish artist who created with a limited palette that is famous still today. He kept his color tubes to a minimum, and this allowed him to focus on strong use of values which was one of many things that helped make him a very successful painter. Using these same Zorn palette colors, a limited palette with many values, I’ve created a 30-minute head study of a bearded old man, done from life. Now that you know how to recognize values, study the head alongside the grayscale 1 to 10 line, and try to see and match the value changes in light and dark as the values create the volume in this simple head.

Practice to Master Your Values

Knowing how and where to place your values is best learned by looking intently at your subject and, of course, by practicing. Art teachers can tell you how general light theory works and they can tell you how to mix your value scale, but as an artist you must become very good at looking and perceiving exactly where the lights and darks are and them mixing or creating the appropriate values in the appropriate shapes. As we showed in the basic charcoal drawing of the girl, you can create a beautiful work of art just using 2 values, whereas many subtle and small value changes next to one another can add to a sense of refined realism. Using a broad range of values from 1 to 10 can create high contrast, bold and striking works, and working with only using one side of the values scale can create moody or atmospheric works. The impressionists painted paintings full of light as they were done outdoors in the sunlight, and using most of the lower values on the scale, they often did not even exceed a value 6. Most people say, “The impressionists did not use black,” but many of them did use the color black, they simply rarely used the pure value 10 of black.

Study the works on this page, and take some of your own and turn them into grayscale to become more familiar with values and how to use them as you see fit when creating your works of art. I hope I have succeeded in adding some value to your works with this basic but important lesson!