Values

 

 It has been awhile, I know. Life has been hectic. But, I have been painting! Just not blogging. Sometimes you have to choose which balls to keep up in the air (pun unintentional, but why not?!) I'll catch you up on my efforts.

If you don't receive Fine Art Views Newsletter, you may wish to check it out: http://faso.com/fineartviews/30732/put-the-fire-out. Keith Bond's article that arrived in my email this morning touches on just what Sarajean and I have discovered: we need to address and master one problem at a time and have decided to focus on values to start. Occasionally I'll share what we do.

We painted value scales to help us understand the intervals from white to black. As you can see, we did a ten-step value scale, then nine (thinking it would be easier to mix and judge steps that are equidistant from others, since we painted the white and black first, and then mixed the value between each time), then five, which would be good for poster studies. In these exercises, we mixed a black using black and burnt umber, so it would dry faster and not be tacky once dried. We used palette knives to mix and paint, to keep the values clean. I'm not positive my value steps are evenly spaced, but they're close, I hope! Expert eyes would be so welcome, but I imagine even imperfect exercises could lead to eventual mastery.

The sphere here, was painted prior to the formal value scales, but we did limit ourselves to five values to begin, I think. We also allowed ourselves to play with warm and cool temperatures. Rather than keeping it a simple poster study, I tried to figure out how to paint it "realistically." Perhaps this dealt with more than one problem! oops.

Independently, Sarajean and I will practice our exercises and continue to paint whatever and however we wish. If you'd like to share exercises that you found helpful, please do! I'll be happy to make your comments visible so we can all benefit. I expect to be posting more frequently since other demands are quieting down some. Take care and thanks for visiting!