Experiments with values, part 2

Day 803 of my sketchbook practice

Previous posts in the series about values:

Swatching crayons by value, part 1

Swatching crayons by value, part 2

Experimenting with values, part 1

Today

• The second batch of my value studies

• Color vs. black and white

• Q&A below

Q & A

I have a question from Lynne in my previous post. I want to answer it here.

The first part of Lynne's question:

I am really intrigued by this series of experiments. I'd like to know your thoughts on what you started to understand in the last sketch.

When I look at the images from the previous post in black and white, it all seems so random:

• The values of the background and teapot/vase are too similar

• Or the objects are as dark as the background

• Or shadows are too light or too dark.

• Everything is out of sync.

Then, the last one (bottom right) looked harmonious to my eyes for the first time. It looked like this could be a natural scene and that it was what I was looking for. The shadows are as dark as they should be. And the colors play well together—a happy accident.

The second part of Lynne's question:

Also, what do you mean by, 'distinct colours, must be 10 apart?' (Paraphrasing).

The best way to answer will be with concrete examples based on images from this post.

• The background color in the third image in the top row is light grey and has the number 23 on my color chart. To find the color of a shadow on this surface, I will go down on my chart to at least color 33 or further down. I used an analogous gray (40) color in this case.

• In the background of the bottom left picture, I have a periwinkle blue in light (44) and lilac (63) in the shadow.

I use the same method to choose value differences between objects, like the vase vs. background or table. I want different values on each element so they don't blend. And for this, the neighbor colors must be at least 10 points away on my color charts. For example

• The bottom right image has a bottle in grass-green (35) and a background in mauve (50).

An example where the colors are too close for me

• The second image in the top row has a background in grey (40), and the table is olive green (46). 

I hope this answers your question, Lynne! :)

One more thing…

I just wanted to say these are just experiments, my way of learning and trying to understand things. I hope at some point, thinking about values when choosing colors will become intuitive, and I will no longer need the color charts.

If you are still reading down here, I wish you many happy accidents :)