Episode 146: The #1 Painting Mistake: Choosing Color Over Value

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Honest Art Workshops

1:00Hi there. Are you an artist who's been painting for five years or less and you're wondering how you can get your art to that fine art status? Or maybe you're an artist who is looking for your voice and your signature style. And I'm here to tell you that's exactly why I created the Honest Art Workshops and we have them in gorgeous destinations all over the world. And in them, we tap into you and to your voice. I only host a handful of them a year, three to five. So if you're interested in that, head to the link in the show notes to learn more.

Values in Art

1:38Welcome back to the Honest Art Podcast and welcome to the studio. My name is Jodi King and I am your host. So today we are talking about values. So if you are an artist that's been, you know, you've got tons and years of experience painting and you've got lots of accolades, this episode might not be for you. But if you are an artist that has been painting, let's say, I don't know, five years or less. Okay, I'm going to extend that a little bit because I think I painted longer than that

2:11before I really got this concept in my bones. So let's say like seven years or less, then you're going to get a lot of value, no pun intended, out of this podcast. So the reason I wanted to do this is that I love teaching workshops. I love it. And I think one of the things that I love most about it is that all of these artists get together and, you know, we eventually get into the Fuglies, right?

2:41And when that happens, we celebrate, first of all, because we're not being chicken shits. We are getting in there and we are painting and we're doing it, right? But when we get stuck, I have found that 90% of the time, if someone's stuck and they call me over to ask for a little support, I found that 90% of the time, it's for two reasons. Now, the first reason is usually because the sizes of the color, this is especially with

3:12abstract work, by the way, representational, not quite as much, but it's usually with abstract work. So one of them is the size of the colors are usually the same. And that's because when we are painting, we paint like we write, right? And so it's usually in the same space. So in order to change that up, we really have to exaggerate our movements, either much smaller or much bigger. But we're not talking about that one. We're talking about the other one that most people get stuck on, and that is on values.

3:47And values just mean the lightness and darkness of color. So that's what we're going to talk about, and I'm going to teach you how you can determine if values are your problem, or not, you know, how you can see them. And I'm going to teach you how you can change them up, get out of the fuglies, and make your strongest work ever. So if you're ready, let's get messy. All right, so why do values matter so much?

4:24And when I say so much, let me tell you. So I often talk about fine art being based on, or I guess the best example of fine art, it's like a table, right? It's like a four-legged table. And that means that when you are sitting at a table, if one of those legs isn't strong enough, or one of those legs is a little shorter than the other, the whole table is off. And it's the same thing with art.

4:54So I always talk about there are four legs to the table, and one of those legs is values, the darkness and lightness of color. Now, the reason why this is so important is because our brains will register values before it ever registers color. And yet, when we are in a situation where we don't know how to make our painting stronger,

5:25or we are full-on into the fuglies, and we are in that self-deprecating thing, we usually go, oh, well, I need to change a color, or this color is off, or this color is off. And so I want to offer you that usually it's not color, usually it's value. And the reason this is the case, and it's not our fault, I just want to say that, it's not your fault. The reason this is the case is usually when we buy paint at the art supply store or online

5:58when we get it, most of the time, it's a medium value. So, you know, I'm thinking about blues, and thinking about reds, and purple, and, you know, greens, like all of the different colors, right? Now, there are some exceptions to this, of course. You know, if you've got a Payne's gray is going to be really, really dark, or a pale, pale, pale pink, or white, or black, you know, there are some exceptions. But in general, 90% of the time, it's because the paint that we're getting from the art supply

6:34is a medium value. So that means we have to do something to change the value of the color. Now, there are different schools of thought, different people do different things, but in general, I just have to say, in general, there's either you add white to the color, or yellow.

7:05Some people prefer to use yellow. I always use white. It's just easier for me. I, and I'm known for my color, so it's not like one is necessarily better than the other. So adding white or yellow will change the value to make it lighter. Now, when it comes to creating darker values, there's different things you can do as well. I always use black because, again, that's just my preference, but I have brilliant artist friends who they prefer to use Payne's gray, or a burnt umber, or a dark ultramarine blue.

7:41But for today's exercise, I'm going to use white to make my values lighter, and I'm going to use black to make my values darker. It's just easy. But I suggest, nobody's the boss of you. You do what you want. Experiment and try it out. But I'll tell you, if you don't change up your values, you're going to be struggling for a long time to kind of get out of those, get out of the fuglies. All right, now, so how do you check to see if your painting is needing some value enhancements?

8:21Maybe you need darker values, or you need lighter values. One hack that I always like to use is I just like to grab my phone and take a photo of the painting, and then turn it to black and white setting. And you'll see within that, if it mostly looks gray, then you'll know immediately, oh, I just need to change the values here, right? So maybe making it a little bit lighter, or a little bit darker.

8:52So that's one easy, easy way to do it. The other thing that you can do is you can squint. All right, so by looking at your painting and squinting, you can, some people even like to do this, but by squinting, it's a lot easier to take the color out of the equation so that you're just looking at values. But either way, those are really easy things to do to determine if what's going wrong here

9:23has to do with values. All right, so let's get into a couple of demonstrations for you. All right, so here I have obviously just gray, and it is in a medium value. Now, yes, there are a bit, there's a little bit of value change. This is a little bit lighter here, and it's a little bit darker here. And the reason I wanted you to see this is because oftentimes we can look at something like that, and we can go, well, I have a difference in values.

9:58That's true, but it's not enough of a difference for there to be impact. So let me show you what happens when we have a medium value, and we just add in some lighter and darker values, and I think you'll really see the impact. So I'm just going to get some white here. And you can see already, just by adding white, that it already has changed.

10:32It's changed the painting. And now, because we've got our light value, and we've got our medium value, if we go ahead and also add a darker value, it's going to enhance it even more. So let's add some, wow. Now I'm going to change, let me just change this a little bit, because, you know, this was the same size, and remember I was talking about how 90% of the time the sizes of color

11:09are similar, so it's really easy to do. So I'm going to just add a different size. I'm going to kind of come in here just a little bit with that. So immediately, immediately there is a difference. Now because I can't help myself, and I hate that these light marks are the same type, I'm going to bring that over a little bit, even take it off the canvas.

11:42So there you go. Just a slight change by adding some different values makes the world of difference. And you could even come back with this, and you could do some fun things where you could draw in it and see how that creates light values and some line difference. Just so fun to be able to do this. So once you get a really clear understanding of values, it's a total game changer.

12:12Okay, let's move on to another painting so I can demonstrate for you. Hey, real quick while I've got you, I just want to tell you, I know that being an artist can be a lonely job and filled with self-doubt. So artists need other artists, and we need painting techniques and the skills to sell our art along with it. So that's why I created the best membership group of artists on the planet called the Honest Art Society. And in it, you receive several coaching calls a month with me so that you can get your questions

12:45answered on business and on your art. You get monthly trainings from art techniques to marketing and business. You get exclusive art critiques, as well as exclusive discounts on workshops and courses. And all of this is for only $47 a month, and you can cancel at any time. So if you're ready to make your best art ever, along with a great community of amazing artists, I hope you'll join me in the Honest Art Society, and you can find out more at the link in the

13:16show notes. Alrighty, okay, so that was a demonstration for more of, for an abstract painting. So let me show you on this piece here. Now, this is a painting that I got at Goodwill, and the person who did this captured to me like a swamp. So I'm from South Louisiana, so I particularly just kind of loved the vibe. But anyway, so you could look at this painting, and you could think, well, there, this is,

13:50this is a lighter value, right? But really, if we're thinking of white being like a one, and black being a 10, what we're wanting is, we're wanting a range of values. And this is mostly in that maybe four, six, four, five, I don't know if you guys can see, four, five, six range. So if we can just change at least one of the values, I'm going to change this one up here.

14:25If we can just change at least one of the values, it can make a big difference. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to get this down to like more of a, of a two or a three, and you can still be able to see. Now that looks a little white, so I'm not wanting white, definitely wanting blue. So there we go. That's a little bit better. But you can already see how this lighter value can change, can change the work.

15:10I'm not going to worry about all of the details around, around the, the leaves and the trees. I just wanted you to see what a huge difference, just changing, just changing the value.

15:28And this was the, this was the same color blue, by the way. The only thing, the only thing I changed, the only thing I changed was I added white. Now, all of this, by the way, if you really want like detailed, ooh, that's, that doesn't look good. All right. Pretend this is, that part is better. But anyway, if you want a lot more information about mixing colors and values and all of that,

15:59this is all, I teach all of this extensively, a lot more extensively in the color course for rebels, because there's so much more to, uh, learn about mixing colors.

16:15Obviously there's a lot more as far as, uh, detail painting that can be done here.

16:24But just by doing that, that alone has made a huge difference in the painting. So now you could always go back and put in some darker values as well, but now we have at least created, uh, light values and medium values. All right. Let's look at one more painting that we can, uh, we can do so I can demonstrate what to do. Okay. One more painting. So I want to, um, I want to show you this one.

16:55There's a lot wrong with this painting. I shouldn't say that, that that's terrible. Okay. There's a lot that I can do to make this painting stronger. Not the least of which is, uh, values. So if I were to take a picture of this painting, most of the values would be similar. Yes. There are some parts where we've got some, some darker values here, and this is a little bit darker as well. And maybe just a little here, there are a few, but in general, if, uh, if I'm looking

17:31at this, uh, the two things that I see that I would do next are number one, I would change the values and number two, I would start putting a little bit of structure in there. Okay. So that's going back to a composition thing. Uh, so again, all of this composition structure, saturated colors, less saturated colors, all of these things are in the color course for rebels. If you're interested in that, we'll put a link for that in the show notes.

18:01Uh, anyway, so I'm going to show you what happens if you just, just work on the values a little bit, um, within a piece. Now I've mixed up some color to where, uh, this color, which I, I love, this is the red iron oxide. Uh, and then, uh, this is a blue, it's kind of a combo of cobalt blue, um, a little bit of yellow ochre. Um, that's, uh, that's a little bit, so it's a little less saturated, but anyway, so I'm

18:34just going to take those two colors alone. Cause there's a lot of colors in here, obviously neon and different things, some little bit of, uh, purple pink, but if you, I'm just going to go with those two colors and show you what a huge difference it can make just by putting in, um, some lighter values. All right. So let's get started doing that. All right. So here's a little bit of the blue and let's just put some down here.

19:03Let's make sure you can see that. Yep. You can see that. So, and then I always like to put colors around, around the painting so that our eye can be drawn around the painting. And do you remember I also said I wanted to put in a little structure so that alone provides a little structure, but wow. I mean, what a huge difference just putting those different values, those lighter values

19:37alone, what a difference that can make. All right. Now let me, let me add in a little bit of a darker value in here and check that out. That also makes a difference. Now, uh, one thing I want to point out is when, when you put a dark value next to a light value, can you guys see how your eye is starting to go right here? And the reason for that is because the focal point always becomes where the darkest value, this case, that one, where the darkest value and the lightest value meet.

20:19So that's, uh, that is a huge difference. Now let's try, let's just do a little bit of this blue within here. See, I'm just adding, I'm leaving, letting some of that, uh, that peek through a little bit, but what a difference, just this, this value change is. All right, let me get a different brush and then I have taken this red iron oxide and I've just mixed it with white. Now we're going to put that on there.

20:53Again, such a huge change. I'm going to come over here and put up some of that right there.

21:01Now you can see, you can see that my, my brushstrokes are very similar, right? Because we, uh, we paint like we write. Um, but I'm going to go back in here and I'm going to put a little more structure in just a minute. But even just this slight change that I've made is making, um, it's making a big difference in the piece. In fact, there are places that are, um, uh, darker-ish value.

21:32I'm going to make sure you can still see it. There's places that are a darker-ish value, but I want to make them even darker for impact. So we've got, now we've got a huge change. Is this painting finished? No, not at all. It is absolutely a work in progress, but I do love the direction it's going. Now, before I let you go, I want to just, uh, point out one other thing, um, about values. And it, it is as it relates to having a place for your eye to rest.

22:06Again, all of these things are in the color course. So now that we're talking about it, I can't, I just want to tell you everything. So, um, I, there are oftentimes there is so much going on in abstract work that, uh, it, we, we can't stay in it. We can't keep, like, looking at it because there's no place, um, for our eye to rest or there's no negative space. Right. And so sometimes what I like to do is I like to, uh, go around some of the edges and do it up here.

22:40Maybe you can see it better to go around some of the edges of the painting and just come in a little bit with some lighter values or some darker values. Because it can, uh, number one, uh, provide place for the eye to rest, but it can also give, give the piece some structure, uh, especially if it's incredibly expressive. So, uh, just going around the edges with, uh, a lighter value, let me come over here, I don't think you can see, but the lighter value or a darker value can be super, super important.

23:18So, um, there you go. A little bit of a, uh, value lesson. Hopefully that's going to be helpful for any of you who are struggling just a little bit.

Applying Value Lessons

23:29And, um, last thing I'm going to say is when we create lighter values by adding white or we're adding yellow, when we create light, there is a tendency to not go light enough. So, um, if you, let's say you're starting with a medium value of around a five, if you add a little bit of white, you're already like, oh my gosh, look, it's a four, but it looks lighter. So, I'm going to encourage you to, uh, push it a little bit more just so that you can have those distinct values.

24:07Because remember, our brain is going to see the darkness and lightness of color first. So, if we don't push the values, um, enough one way or the other, it's going to all come across as medium values and we're not going to really know where to focus on a painting. All right, I hope that was helpful for you. If you like what you saw here, especially, I hope you're watching this on YouTube. It'd be a little hard to, uh, take all this in on audio. But if you're watching on YouTube, could I just ask you to, uh, like the video and subscribe to the channel?

24:42And if you're listening to this on audio, that was probably a hard one to listen to. But whenever you do listen on audio, if you could just give us a five-star review, five stars and a review, that'd be really helpful. Okay, until next week, take good care of yourselves and each other. Peace out.