Value – Part 1

What’s the Big Deal?

Value is an incredibly important element of art and with good reason. Simply put, it is the lightness or darkness of hues (colors). When dealing with black and white for example, white is the lightest value and black is the darkest. The value halfway between these extremes is a middle grey.

Value helps our minds rationalize what we’re seeing and make sense of the form.

Value is directly affected by light. It is what helps us perceive objects and understand their form without having to touch them. Without it, everything would appear flat or two-dimensional. We understand form because light travels over objects, reflecting different amounts of light back to our eyes. Our minds rationalize what we see and makes sense of the form. Take this circle, for example. Without any value, it is a flat, two-dimensional circle, which takes up no space at all. But just by adding value to it, it completely transforms the circle into a sphere, something that we recognize as taking up a certain amount of space.

It’s value that guides our eyes over this apple and leads our minds to understand that it’s round.

As artists, we must understand light and how it reacts over surfaces and the relationship between the lightest and darkest values (highlights and shadows) of each object. Having a firm grasp of this will help give drawings, paintings, and even graphic design dimension (2D vs 3D) as well as visual appeal. Value in art is basically used to create the illusion of highlights, shadows, and the direction of the light source. The highlight, for example, will be directly in the path of the light source. The darkest shadow will be on the opposite side of the highlight, where the least amount of light reaches.

A Shadow Is Not Just a Shadow…

In between the brightest highlight and deepest shadows are transitional values. A traditional black and white value scale has eight to ten values, with white being #1 and black being #10 (if we’re using 10 values). Everything in between is a transitional grey. In other words, the value transitions from white to black. Take the same sphere from above…

We can tell that the light source is coming from the upper right corner and hitting the sphere directly on its upper right. As the light travels around it, the values transition from white to a much darker value (generally never completely black). All of these subtle transitions is what gives the object its form.

Slow Down and Really Observe

Why is a shadow on a form (generally) never completely black as one might think? This is where the artist must have a discerning eye. Take a closer look at the sphere…

The first things we notice are the things that are most prominent…the highlight, the core shadow (darkest), and the cast shadow (the shadow cast onto the ground by the object). We might also understand and recognize the transition in between the highlight and core shadow. What you might not see right off the bat is the reflected light. Light from the light source hits the surface that our object is sitting on also. That surface reflects light back up and onto the lower portion of our sphere. This reflected light prevents the core shadow from being completely black and adds to the illusion that our object has form and is indeed sitting on a surface and is taking up space.

These transitional values vary between the highlights and shadows giving each object their identifiable form. In reality, there are a gazillion values in between, but eight to ten is generally enough for an artist to gauge things.

Discerning values with a value scale

Value Scales

Value scales are a valuable tool for artists to have. I happen to have two, one which I made myself and the other I purchased at my local art supply store. Many people have a difficult time translating color values to black and white values. Much of what I do, for example, is to take a color photograph and create a black and white graphite portrait from it. That means that my mind has to take the values that I see in color and recreate their equivalent in black and white. For me, this has always been an innate skill. My mind just does it. But it can definitely be a challenge for some. The value scale can help here by doing a side by side comparison. Find the number on the scale which most closely matches what you’re seeing and that’s the value you use. If you still have trouble matching values, it can help to blur your vision a little while you hold your value scale next to what you’re trying to match. Another trick is to hole-punch just above each square so that you can view the object through the hole, right next to your value square. Blurring your vision still helps. You’re not focusing on the color here, but the lightness or darkness of the object.

My value scale

You can always purchase a scale, but it might be worth your while to create one of your own. Just use a ruler to draw out a row of ten one inch squares on white artist’s paper. Bond paper won’t work as well because it isn’t nearly as thick and won’t stand up to wear and tear for very long. Number each square from 1-10. (Mine actually has eleven squares because my OCD wants #5 to be dead center, so the first square is 0.) Leave square #1 alone. This is pure white. (Unless you’re OCD like me, then #0 will be pure white.) Put your crosshatching skills to use and block in #10 until it is entirely black. Next, fill in squares #5 and 6. These two are medium greys with #6 being slightly darker than #5 and about half as dark as #10. Doing the medium greys at this stage helps to gauge the rest. Then fill in the remaining squares, making sure there isn’t too great of a jump between each of the squares.

Be Patient!

Remember to crosshatch gradually, slowly building up value as you go. If you go too dark too quickly, you cannot adequately erase because you’ve already marred the surface of the paper. So be patient as you do this. It will help you build muscle memory and patience for when you’re ready to tackle bigger projects.

Compare yours to a store bought or online scale. Mine is old enough, the paper isn’t even white anymore!

To see how well you do, you can compare yours to a store bought scale or to an online version.

Prismacolor Turquoise (left) or Staedtler Mars (right)

It helps to use artist’s pencils (Staedtler or Prismacolor) for this. For the light values (2-5), I’d recommend using HB-4B pencils. For the darker values (6-10), 4B-6B or 8B. (HB for the lightest and 8B for the darkest) Once you have a decent value scale, tuck it away for safe keeping. You might want to spray it with a fixative to prevent smearing. An aerosol hairspray can also work for this purpose. Spray it evenly (without soaking it), allow it to dry, and put it away for future use.

Stay tuned for next week’s post where we’ll touch on Part 2 of value. And if you like, you can play with some paint…

Further Reading:

Shape, Form, and Space

Line in Art

A Brief Note on Color