The Simple Secret to Better Painting

by Greg Albert

  Using three values

  Reduce your subject to three values: black, gray and white. All light shapes become white, all dark shapes become black, everything else is gray.

  Most subjects will lend themselves readily to a reduction of three values. You’ll find that you will have to make some judgment calls when assigning labels, but less so than with only black and white. If using only three values, your first impulse might be to label everything gray because nothing is totally black or absolutely white. Instead, you’ll have to exaggerate the differences by making the darker shapes black and the lighter shapes white.

  Try labeling the shapes B, G and W(black, gray, white) like a paint-by-number. Doing so encourages you to see the larger pattern of tonal values—the shapes that will be the strongest in your composition.

  Using five values

  Reduce your subject matter to five values: white, light gray, middle gray, dark gray and black. This value reduction still keeps the pattern simple, but allows for enough value distinctions to make the identity of your subject matter clearer.

  If adjacent shapes are close in value, you may need to assign them different values to distinguish them from each other.

  Five is a comfortable number for practicing with value patterns. It is easy to mix three grays that are sufficiently different for this purpose. Using more than three grays with the black and white requires careful mixing and renders little benefit for the extra effort.

  basic value patterns

  Once you start thinking about your picture as a pattern of value areas, you can check to see if that pattern forms an effective composition. Some patterns are more effective than others. In fact, there are some models that are almost guaranteed to make your pictures more effective.

  Simple to remember and use, these patterns consist of only three values: dark, middle and light. (Since we rarely use pure black or white when painting, it is easier to think of dark and light).

  By varying the proportional amount of area occupied by each value, you will naturally comply with the ONE RULE OF COMPOSITION. Varying the values this way is much more interesting than dividing them equally. In each case, the smallest area naturally becomes the center of interest. The largest value area becomes the dominant value group. (If the largest value area is light, the painting is said to be in a high key; if the largest is dark the painting is in a low key.)

  When there is an equal distribution of values, it is more difficult to create one spot with enough contrast to act as the focal point. All three values compete for attention. When unequally divided, the smallest area, because of its contrast in both value and size, wins the battle for the viewer’s attention and becomes the “star.”

  Vary the intervals between values

  Each of these two basic value patterns is divided into three areas of different sizes and values, resulting in six possible variations. The smallest area, located at one of the sweet spots, is the natural center of interest.

  lead the viewer’s eye to your focal point

  The artist has employed one of the basic value patterns, a white shape containing a dark shape placed on a mid-value field. The monastery is the light shape, making it the visual focal point. The ladder-like bands of shadow and the converging road lead the eye toward this point; the peripheral darks keep the eye circulating within the composition. The focal point is located at one of the off-center sweet spots.

  A basic value pattern

  Spanish Monastery Jack Lestrade 19" x 28" (48cm x 71cm) Watercolor on paper

  use values to enhance mood

  This picture is a good example of how a value pattern can enhance the mood suggested by the subject matter. The dog is a simple dark shape set against a high-key background. The animal is balanced and contrasted with the brighter, busier folds of the quilt on the right. The contrast makes the dark shape look very passive, even inert—appropriate for a sleeping dog. The mood is one of quiet rest in the shadows. Bright eyes twinkle from the dark fur of the animal’s head (located at one of the sweet spots), creating an irresistible center of interest.

  Guilty Pleasures Sueellen Ross 13" x 19" (33cm x 48cm) Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper

  turn the ordinary into the extraordinary

  This elegant landscape painting is a good example of how a strong, simple value scheme can make a powerful picture of an ordinary scene. Although the colors are clean and the brushwork is descriptive and economical, the lights and darks are what makes the piece so compelling. There is minimum detail, but maximum impact. The focal point is located at the bottom of the dark shape of foliage on the left. The sunlit rocks against the deep shadow create an eye-catching area of contrast. The secondary focal point is the cactus silhouetted against the distant mountain. Because the contrast there is less stark than at the rocks below, the cactus becomes a subordinate attraction for the eye and provides an interesting balance.

  Table Mountain Kurt Anderson 14" x 11" (36cm x 28cm) Oil on canvas

  gradation of value creates interest

  While value contrast is a great technique for attracting the viewer’s attention, gradation of value is a great technique for retaining it. Gradation is the gradual change of tonal value from light to dark over distance. The transition is not sudden, but blended from one area to another.

  Gradation, by its very nature, complies with the ONE RULE OF COMPOSITION: Never make any two intervals the same, because gradation entails constantly changing.

  A shape with a single value overall can be monotonous and boring. However, if the value changes within that shape, there is more for the eye to examine and explore, which makes it more interesting. If the adjacent shapes show a contrasting gradation, the eye and mind have more to scan, which makes that part of the composition even more appealing.

  Gradations draw in the eye

  The gradual change in tonal value in the foreground pulls the eye into the picture. A value area that has both contrast and gradation attracts and retains the viewer’s attention, creates depth in a picture, and helps focus the eye on a center of interest.

  Value changes within shapes

  The gradations of each shape go back and forth between light and dark.

  Value changes keep the eye moving

  The alternating pattern of light and middle values with one chunk of light anchors the eye. The variety of textures and gradations on the rocks “tickles the retina” and keeps the eye circulating.

  Mud, Rocks and Water Joan Rudman 30" x 36" (76cm x 91cm) Watercolor on paper

  harmony within value contrast

  Arthur Wesley Dow, an influential teacher of the late nineteenth century, introduced the Japanese word notan for pleasing value contrast in design in his classic book Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Instruction (Doubleday & Co: 1929). The word in Japanese means dark-light. Notan, however, is a concept much more profound and subtle than merely dark-light contrast. Notan expresses the beauty and harmony of darks and lights balanced together or interacting in what the Japanese call visual music.

  The concept of notan includes figure-ground relationships formed by dark shapes against light and light shapes against dark. (In this case, figure refers to any object or shape set against a background, not just to a human figure). Notan combines all that makes shape and value contrast interesting: variety in dimension, concavity and convexity, interlocking, figure-ground ambiguity and dramatic opposition.

  Dow recommended reducing a composition to its basic dark and light pattern by rendering it in pure black and white shapes. If this underlying foundation was interesting, the composition was successful. All the shapes, both positive and negative, must be interesting shapes in themselves with varying intervals. Their interaction should create harmony and balance.

  Values help define the subject

  This painting works well as a purely abstract value pattern, even without reference to a real landscape, and is therefore a good example of notan. Nevertheless, there are just enough visual clues to iden
tify the subject matter: water, surf, rock and cloud are all expressed in this moonlit landscape. Soft and hard, smooth and rough, light and dark are all contrasted to make a seemingly simple picture one of subtle mystery.

  Lobster Cove 1 Donald Holden 7 1.4 " x 10 3.4" (18cm x 27cm) Watercolor on paper

  Notan utilizes the potential of ambiguity in the figure-ground relationship; sometimes the white in a design appears to be the figure or positive shape on a black background, and sometimes the black in the same design appears to be the figure or positive shape on a white background. Neither the white nor the black dominates. The result is a fascinating game for the mind to play, one that follows the ONE RULE OF COMPOSITION:Never make any two intervals the same.

  Values intensify drama

  Don Holden is an artist who believes “that a painting must be (before anything else) a satisfying arrangement of positive and negative shapes.” This painting is an example of his use of black and white design principles to build his composition. A series of dark violet verticals are interrupted by flares of hot color. The widths of the intervals and the spaces between them are varied to intensify the drama of a raging forest fire.

  Forest Fire XI Donald Holden 7 ¼" x 10 ¾" (18cm x 27cm) Watercolor on paper

  Amour Doré Kevin Macpherson 20" x 16" (51cm x 41cm) Oil on canvas

  color

  There are many very effective systems for creating successful color schemes for your paintings—if you can remember them. Unfortunately, most are too complex to remember and too complicated to readily apply when you are locked in mortal combat with a painting in your studio or on location.

  Although it might not seem obvious at first, the ONE RULE OF COMPOSITION: Never make any two intervals the same can be readily and usefully applied to color, coming to your rescue by simplifying color composition. The rule will help you add just enough

  variety in the range of colors in your pictures

  if you remember this formula: Mostly, some and a bit. When you apply this formula to the basic characteristics of color, you will almost automatically get a pleasing color scheme in your paintings.

  characteristics of color

  Artists usually describe color as having four characteristics: hue, temperature, intensity and value.

  Hue

  Hue is simply the name or identity of the color used to distinguish one color from another.

  YELLOW

  BLUE

  RED

  Temperature

  Temperature refers to color associations. Colors associated with heat and fire (reds, oranges, yellows) are called warm colors, and colors associated with ice and water (blues and greens) are called cool colors.

  COOL COLORS

  WARM COLORS

  Value

  Value, or tonal value, is how light or dark the color is compared to a gray scale. Yellow is lighter in value than red. Red is lighter in value than purple.

  HIGH KEY

  BLUE

  Intensity

  Intensity refers to the purity or saturation of the color, or how close a pigment’s color is to its pure spectrum color. Intensity is sometimes called chroma or saturation. A brilliant, clean color has high intensity; a grayed, dirty color has low intensity.

  the color wheel

  For our discussion, the basic and familiar color wheel contains the color relationships you need to know.

  On the color wheel, the three primary colors (blue, red and yellow) are directly across from their complementary opposites (orange, green and purple). Orange, green and purple are also called secondary colors as they are each created by mixing two primaries.

  Between each primary color and the secondary color is a tertiary color, such as yellow-green between yellow and green and yellow-orange between yellow and orange.

  Colors close together on the color wheel (yellow-green, green and blue-green, for example) are called analogous colors.

  color dominance

  The color wheel, or color spectrum, shown on the color wheel has all the colors in even amounts and in even increments. The change from one color to the next is the same for all colors. If a painting had every color of the spectrum in equal amounts, it would be chaotic. If a painting was done with only one color it would be unexciting. There would be no pleasing variety in the proportions of colors in either case.

  A handy way to achieve color variety is to remember this formula: Mostly, some and a bit. Your painting could be mostly one hue or family of analogous colors, with some of another color, and just a bit of a third contrasting color.

  Equal divisions of hues are boring

  Unequal divisions of hues are more interesting

  Mostly, some and a bit

  Blue is the dominant color in this composition. As shown in diagrams, the picture is mostly middle blue, some lighter, grayer blue, with a bit of warm color for contrast.

  End of the Line James McFarlane 20" x 28" (51cm x 71cm) Watercolor on paper

  temperature dominance

  When thinking about the colors of your composition, you don’t even have to think about specific hues, only color temperature. To make your painting pleasing, you simply need to vary the quantities of warm and cool colors, so they are not equal. There should be either more cool colors than warm, or more warm colors than cool. You also need a touch or two of contrasting color (and value) to strengthen the center of interest. This color contrast becomes a natural focal point and should be located at your picture’s center of interest. In other words, the colors should be mostly of one temperature, some of the other, and a bit of contrast.

  If the dominant colors are warm, the composition will have an overall warm tone, and can be described as being warm dominant. If the dominant colors are cool, the composition is cool dominant.

  Warm dominant

  This composition consists of mostly warm colors, including a warm violet, and therefore is warm dominant. There is some brown and a bit of orange.

  Sunset, Monument Valley Frank LaLumia 20" x 24" (51cm x 61cm) Watercolor on paper

  intensity dominance

  The dominant and subdominant colors in your painting should not be of the same intensity or saturation. If both are pure, saturated colors, the painting will be harsh. If both are neutralized or grayed, the painting will be dull.

  To maximize interest, you should use a range of color saturation. The colors should be neither all pure nor all gray. Save the pure, or high intensity, colors for the focal point.

  a quick refresher

  The formula—Mostly, some and a bit—can be applied to all of the characteristics of color. Whether applied to hue, temperature or intensity (and value as will be seen shortly) the Mostly, some and a bit formula almost automatically guarantees a pleasing variety in your paintings.

  In fact, if you only remember the Mostly, some and a bit formula when you paint, you will be following the ONE RULE OF COMPOSITION: Never make any two intervals the same. Either concepts will give you good results, and both are easy to remember and apply.

  Pure, right-out-of-the-tube, high-intensity colors

  Low-intensity, neutral colors

  A mix of pure and grayed (high and low-intensity) colors

  Mostly pure color

  This painting contains mostly vibrant, pure colors, with some neutralized colors and a bit of contrast at the focal point.

  Lagos Morning Ned Mueller 12" x 16" (30cm x 41cm) Oil on canvas

  Mostly neutral color

  In contrast to the painting above, this landscape has mostly grayed colors, with some brighter colors and a bit of value contrast.

  Winter Barn J. Chris Morel 11" x 14" (28cm x 36cm) Oil on canvas

  value dominance

  Value is more important to the success of your painting than color. Nevertheless, color is often what the viewers of your painting will notice most. Therefore, the value of your colors will be important in determining the success of your composition.

  If the dominant colors of your composition are light i
n tonal value, the painting is said to be in a high key. If the dominant colors are dark in tonal value, the painting is said to be in a low key.

  The dominant color and the subdominant color should differ in value for maximum effectiveness. If the dominant and subdominant colors are equal in tonal value, the painting won’t have sufficient value contrast to maintain the viewer’s interest. If both are dark or both light, the result will be boring.

  Values of color

  Color is the most attractive quality of painting, but it is not always the most important. This artist has captured the warmth the setting sunlight by surrounding the sun-lit area with cooler, darker colors. Color and value work together to create the impression of late afternoon.

  Tying Up Ned Mueller 10" x 13" (25cm x 33cm) Gouache on paper

  Color pattern simplified

  When simplified, you can see that the dominant colors are mostly cool.

  Value pattern simplified

  When the colors in this painting are seen as values only, you can see that the values are mostly middle values with some dark and a bit of light. If the colors were all of the same value, the shapes in the picture would blend together when reduced to values only. (If your painting isn’t too big, try taking it to a copy shop and making a black- and-white photocopy to see what the value scheme looks like; this can be an educational and humbling experience.)