The dark and light of values

by Tissa Hewavitarane

Most painters believe values to be the most important part of any painting. No matter how beautiful the colours, how perfectly placed the arrangement with thoughtful proportions, if the painting is weak in values, it will be a mediocre or even a poor piece of work. The values are the skeleton of the painting on which colour and form are added.

Without good values the painting collapses. Our world gives us many nuances of values that they cannot be numbered. If our painting would have all these values it would be a jumble. A limited scale value, therefore, gives the painting strength and validity. Every subject and every day gives us a different value range. This is why the artist must have a very sensitive eye to observe these subtle value ranges.

It is also why it is bad to paint a scene too slowly because light is always changing. The artist must grasp the light in the first half hour. He should find the great ranges between the sky and the darks, the light midtones to the light and the relationship to other midtones and to the darks.

It is of great importance how far is the light from the dark? After that we can paint all day.

We must try to observe all the values nature gives us and group them together in four or five large value masses. After that we can vary.

Importance

Always remember that the values are what make the painting's shapes. The values are of great importance and one of the first things to be considered. After we have the value, then we may add colour to it.

If you look at the natural landscapes, you will see hundreds of values of dark and light, you cannot possibly paint them all, so do not try to do so.

Instead, simplify by squinting your eyes, causing you to see only large blocks of dark and light.

Generally, watercolourists start by putting down light values and work through middle values to the darkest, simply because working over previous areas makes them darker.

Value contrasts are one of the major factors in the sparkling quality of watercolours.

The dark makes the light shine and the light makes the darks seem deeper. Light values can be tied together in a painting and so can dark values.

This can be accomplished by flowing unifying washes over certain continuous dark shapes. This keeps the parts or the painting decentralised.

The values in picture are said to be low in key. And the darks usually create a brooding, sober and dramatic feeling just as would a piece of music similarly full of deep notes. The effect on the viewer is usually a happy one, just like the effect of a piece of music played in the piano's bright upper register.

Variety

As we have seen, nature's colours are full of variety, but how can we get the feeling into our paintings? It's only by working and experimenting with colour in an effort to get a perfectly graded wash. Anything to vary the wash and give it the look that an artist thinks more accurately suggests colour, atmosphere and light.

Mae Bennet Brown, the fine painter of flowers, said, "lighter, brighter, darker and duller." She meant that every time you do a wash, you dull it. The white paper is the cleanest and brightest light of all. The first wash sits on the surface of the paper and is very luminous. A second wash, glazed over the first, naturally muddies and dulls the colour. A third wash is duller still, and so on: lighter, brighter, darker and duller.

Light is the life of the painting. And to guarantee bright, luminous lights, the washes should be lively, bright, spontaneous and unworked, lighter and brighter. It is also difficult technically to do everything in one wash. You cannot control your edges. Working in a series of washes also gives you better control of your colour.

Outdoors

Certain decisions have to be made even before you start to paint. For example, what kind of day is it? Where is the sun? High or low? It is going to be a rainy day? Each shift in position changes the character of the subject. That's why watercolourists learn to work quickly outdoors. The painting I have done titled "Misty morning" will show you the values, the dark and the light and the approach to washes work.

The mist lends itself ideally for portrayal in watercolour. There can be a few atmospheric effects which are fascinating and mysterious. The mist has a distinct colour of its own which may be a cold grey or even have a yellow tint. The local colours of individual objects will take on some of this mist colour. For example, when the sun is struggling to break through a morning mist everything in the picture is in various tones of this golden colour.

Mist

Nearly all modelling is eliminated in the mist and you will mostly be painting silhouettes, so the objects in your pictures should have interesting contours retaining their crisp, sharply defined outlines.Study the painting I have done.

I wanted to emphasise the mist. The sky was painted with a wash of cobalt blue mixed with raw amber before it dried. Observe how the sunlight falls to the ground.

One of the most attractive qualities about watercolour is the ability to suggest even the transient effects of light, colour and atmosphere found in nature. The picture is composed entirely of greys, ranging from the palest tint to the deepest grey.