Value Basics for Beginners

Tutorial Tuesday

Let’s get started with some basics for values.

Value: how light or dark something is.

Value Is used in drawing and painting to depict light and shadow. These values define form giving the illusion of depth and space.
Value has the ability to define: Mood, atmosphere, composition, and the believability of the image. If your values are inaccurate your drawing or painting falls apart. If you have correct values in your drawing/painting you can use any color you want and it will look correct.

It’s a good idea to practice a value scale, white to black scale with each step filled with grey getting darker the closer to black the square is.

Try it out: make a row of 1 inch squares, 5 to 10 squares long, keep the first square white and the last square black. Each square should be darker grey as they get closer to the black square. Try to keep a consistent change in value between each square.

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Another practice is to create another value scale but this time smooth transitions from light to dark.
Try it out: make another value scale next to your previous value scale and start with the dark side and work you way back to white.

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After you done a these scales try a small drawing using value only. As you are drawing have the values scales you have completed next to you so you can refer to them as you draw.

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Thanks for stopping by and see you next time. Remember to click the like button and leave a comment below.