Value Scale

Lesson by

inPortrait Painting in Oil Without a Brain

226

Assignments 27Lesson NotesDownloads 1

Value Scale

Lesson by

Morgan Weistling

in Portrait Painting in Oil Without a Brain

226

Assignments 27Lesson NotesDownloads 1

Understanding values has a lot more to do with mileage and practice rather than pure academic understanding.

Your assignment is to do the value scale and create distinct separations between each value. An understanding of these concepts are key to later lessons in the course.

Debra Rank

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12h

Flesh values & Cloudy day values. I learned a valuable lesson on this exercise; don’t try to mix values on grey pallet and then paint on white surface. I made it 10 times harder than it should be, and still not sure it’s as accurate as it could be.

Debra Rank

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13h

Just saw this on my bathroom wall. Fun example of value changes.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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Good looks

@lipstiger

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This is the greatest explanation I have heard in seven years of trying to understand values, all I have ever heard is "if you get your values right you have got it made...Get your values right, have three to five values and get them right" I don't think YouTubers want you to know this info so you will keep coming back to their channel!!! Thank you Morgan!!!

@jsheffie

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I thought my halftone was too light at first, then I remembered the rule: "Always make your halftones LIGHTER than they appear". I think this is close to being correct ( other than I can't spell Reflective Light ) Are my light and shadow families good?

Morgan Weistling

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13h

excellent!

@jjlehmann

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Not sure if I pushed the contrasts too close on the cloudy one (to the right) but hopefully this is good enough.

Morgan Weistling

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Very good

@mahatsu

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I did Cloudy Day first as it was cloudy when I painted (although I was indoor.) Then I tried to differentiate Sunny Day from it. Not sure if it worked.

Morgan Weistling

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13h

it's easy to see if you did it right by looking at the point where the shadow and light meet.Your cloudy has the same amount of contrast as the sunny one. You could go a value darker or more on the cloudy one and let the average and highlight follow it down.

@szokebarnabas

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Value Scale practice

Susan Pennington

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10d

This looks simpler than it is. First of all I had a hard time identifying my local skin color. The left side is my sunny day; felt good about my cloudy day until they dried and I took the picture as they seem quite close. Value in color is definitely my weak area.

Michèle Girard

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10d

I have no idea if that is ok or not. Is there a way to position my glass palette so I don't have reflection in it, I have a hard time seeing the values on my palette because it reflects everything. I tried slanting it but that didn't help much.

Morgan Weistling

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you got it rigft.

Ron Kempke

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11d

I understand the family separation of a single local value but how do you determine the degree of family separation for two differing local values so they appear to be in the same light?

Morgan Weistling

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11d

If you have a value scale from 0 to 10, with 10 being black and 0 being white, you could pick any 3 that are together on that scale as one family. The separation should not be so great as to seem to be too big a jump. If you do, the painting will look too choppy. This is just a rule of thumb, not some great law you cannot ever break. But just know in general, keeping the families close together will result in a cleaner sculpted look. If for instance, your highlight value is too big a jump from average value the head can end up looking like it was covered in sweat or oil.

@rdj8564

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14d

Thanks for the side bars on value. They were very helpful. I may not know how to implement them correctly, but I do understand how it’s supposed to work.

@rdj8564

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14d

I made the left one the gray day and the right one the sunshiny day. I can see that when I do the squinty eye that the one on the right doesn’t have much distinction between the two families.

Morgan Weistling

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14d

I am glad you can see that. Yet, that's the one that should have more contrast. The top 3 need to all go lighter with the highlight being much brighter and others need to follow suit.

@connier

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15d

The dark accent is also called the “occlusion shadow” . Halftones are my biggest challenges. Your explanation of halftones being part of the light family was a revelation to me when I heard you say it in your workshop and videos. It echoes in my brain. 😀

@noelhenry5000

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15d

Total beginner here. Had to YouTube how to clean brush beginner. Should my light family half tone be lighter? And my reflective light darker?

Morgan Weistling

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15d

no. the contrast between those is good. This is fine. Good job.

Riku H

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18d

Value scales. The cloudy day (right side) might have too intense average shadow and darkest accents. Squinting they are not that different from the bright side.

Morgan Weistling

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17d

the real important thing is what the contrast looks like from the two center squares of darkest light(halftone) and lightest dark(reflective). It's a little dance to see how close they can get and yet still be obviously not a part of the other family. You could definitely push the cloudy day with less contrast.

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Morgan Weistling

Award winning fine artist represented by @legacygalleryart in Scottsdale AZ