Tints, Shades, Tones

Value – Part 2

Tints, shades, and tones. While we’re still on the subject of value, I’d like to very briefly cover a few words you may have heard and maybe even used in the past. You may have even used the words tints, shades, and tones interchangeably, but there is a difference. Value, as we now know, is the lightness or darkness of a color. Tints, shades, and tones are directly tied to value. (If you missed last week’s post, Value – Part 1, you should read it now and then come back to this post.)

Tints are essentially lighter values. Pink, for example, is a tint of red. When it comes to working with paint, you would basically add white to any hue to achieve the proper tint. In this case, you would add white to red.

Shades, on the other hand, are darker values. Maroon therefore, would be a shade of red. Shades are achieved by adding small touches of black to the hue.

Tints and shades

Tones are achieved by adding grey to pure color. As we continue, we’ll mostly be focused on tints and shades. You’re free to explore tones, of course, but I have never used them in my own work. It’s just a personal preference.

Creating a Color Chart

Tints and shades color chart

Value scales can be created in color as well. Color wheels can also be purchased, but of course you’d lose the experience of creating one yourself. You can find them with tints and shades. You can also find larger ones with the whole gamut…tints, shades, tones. Again, whenever I’ve created one, I used eleven one inch squares. You may choose to do the same. In this case, if you number from 0-10, square #5 will be the color straight out of the tube (or bottle). Squares #1-4 will be your tints and squares #6-10 will be the shades. #0 will still be white.

Tints

For squares #1-4, start off with a small dab of white paint on a palette. Paint #0 with pure white. Take your hue of choice (let’s say red) and barely touch the tip of a toothpick or a clean brush in it. Be sure it’s the very smallest amount possible. The tiniest bit goes a long way. Trust me! Mix it into your small blob of white paint. It should still be very close to white, just slightly off-white, a very, very light pink. Remember, you want a smooth transition from 0-10, so square #1 should be super light. Add this tint into square #1. Add a tiny bit more red to the blob of tint you created. Mix it in well until it’s even and then add this tint to square #2. Continue until you complete square #4. Alternately for this step, you could start with a red blob and gradually keep adding white to it. I’ve just always found it easier to do the reverse.

Wash your brush and palette and then put a small dab of red on your palette for the shades.

Shades

From square #6, you will gradually add very tiny touches of black to the red. Continue until you get to square #10, which should be the darkest maroon.

In art school, we had to do entire color charts this way. It was tedious at the time, but an excellent way to familiarize ourselves with not just working with paint, but also learning to match values (tints and shades). Try creating one of your own.

Paints

I would use acrylic paints. They’re much cheaper than oils. They mix easily and they dry quickly. Don’t use watercolor for this. Eventually, if you want to paint with watercolor, then by all means, do one then. It definitely can be done, but watercolor is transparent and behaves much differently in all aspects. Our instructor had us doing color charts that consisted of 24-36 different hues. For our purpose here, I’d stick with primaries (red, blue, yellow) and secondaries (orange, green, violet). If you’re feeling adventurous, you can include the tertiaries (red-orange, red-violet, blue-green, blue-violet, yellow-green, and yellow-orange). If you choose to take on this challenge, try making your chart like this…

Color chart template

I’ve included the color names in the fifth column, but only to indicate where each hue goes. You would obviously paint that color in this square. For secondaries, mix equal parts of the primaries. So, equal parts of red and yellow to make orange, equal parts blue and yellow for green, equal parts red and blue for violet. Make enough so that you can set some aside for your tertiaries (or make another batch later). For tertiaries, use equal parts primary and secondary. So for red-orange, mix equal parts of red and orange. Also, make sure that you mix your tints and shades apart from your main batch so that you don’t contaminate one with the other. And remember, the goals is for each to have as smooth a transition from light to dark as possible. You’ll want to use a heavier grade paper for this to prevent buckling.

Optional Chart

If you have a protractor and choose to, you can plot a chart like this onto heavier grade paper and do the pie chart version instead. Either way, the goal is for a smooth transition from light to dark, as well as having each tint and shade be even regardless of the color. In other words, all #4’s should be of equal value, etc.

Optional color chart

Though I don’t normally use color in my own work, this exercise was an invaluable tool. It not only helps you learn to see and identify not just color, but also the endless array of tints and shades, it also helps to train your eye to translate varying values between colors and black and white.

And that brings us to our last element of art…texture. See you back here next week!

Further Reading:

Value – Part 1

Shape, Form, and Space

Line in Art

A Brief Note on Color