Winter Groves: Oaks in January by John F. Carlson, oil, 30 x 42. Courtesy R.H. Love Galleries, Chicago, Illinois.

Attend any realist art class in any medium or genre, and at some point the instructor is going to bring up the topic of values. Modeling the form—or painting its dark, light, and halftone values—is what many artists believe creates the illusion of a three-dimensional subject on a two-dimensional surface. Although some artists—especially those out of the Charles Hawthorne/Henry Hensche school—prefer concentrating on painting spots of color rather than value many still rely on the principles of value to achieve a believable representation of their subject. Here’s what two historical artists and two contemporary artists have to say on values as it relates to landscape painting:

JOHN F. CARLSON
Excerpted from Chapter 3 (Angles and Consequent Values) of Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting (Dover Publications, Mineola, New York)

“Our landscapes’ prime elements—trees, ground, mountains, etc.—receive from the sky differing degrees of light, according to their plane, and it is chiefly this difference of plane that establishes them as darks, half-tones, and semi-lights, as related to one another. These “steps” from dark to light are called values. …

“We deal in this chapter entirely with the question of how dark or how light, or how medium-dark or how medium-light certain masses such as trees, or ground, or sky, or mountain, might be, as related to the other masses. … We deal only in the black-and-white relations between masses; something along the lines that a good photograph of a painting possesses.

“To help the beginner in determining the ratio of light and dark between these masses, he should look with almost-closed eyes at the landscape and the masses of differing values will be more readily seen. Once these values are established on your canvas you will find that the color and color transitions of the masses will be much more easily arrived at. …

“In Diagram No. 2 we have the simple four values in black-and-white; they represent the four big elements [of the landscape]. Mass No. 1 must not be considered as a white, but rather as a light value: a pale-blue sky, for instance. All the values here given represent the average value differences of the average day in the average landscape. …

“In order to gain a thorough understanding of values it is of great benefit to the beginner to study the reproductions of fine masterpieces. Photographs in black-and-white will give better illustrations of the importance of just the dark-and-light design of a picture than would any amount of talking….”

PEGGI KROLL-ROBERTS
Excerpted from the “Establish Values and Color Will Follow” article by Bob Bahr in the premiere issue of Workshop.

This study by Kroll-Roberts demonstrates how she draws a "map" showing the dark-light patterns of her subject.

Peggi Kroll Roberts’ workshop [on painting figures in the landscape] examined composition, design, color use, and quite a bit of art philosophy, but the heart of the teaching was on value. The first exercise required the students to paint the model and the background using two values: black and white. She urges students to paint large masses, connecting the shapes wherever possible. The result is the basic design of the painting. Laying this down first allows one to judge the painting’s overall effect and adjust the composition if necessary.

“I would rather be off on my color than off on my values,” said Kroll-Roberts. … Get your values and design down. Push and pull the big shapes until their relationship to one another work. Learn to see, and to paint, a pleasing dark-light pattern. If you get these big relationships right, you can go back in and add patterns on a dress, add a necklace, anything else, and it will work because the basic value relationships will be preserved.

Kroll-Roberts had the model hold a pure-white cup so students could better judge values.

“Paint all the shadows first,” the artist instructed. “Paint them in one value, and tie the shapes together where you can—mass those shadows.” Kroll-Roberts reminded students that if values are broken up on the canvas—if, for example, there is too much contrast in respective areas—the painting can seem spotty, unorganized, and hard to read from a distance. “Connect the lights and darks so your eye can move through the painting without interruptions,” she said. …

Students then progressed to painting a model’s pose using four values—one, three, eight, and 10 on a 10-point scale, using white with just a trace of quinacridone rose as the value of one, and black at the value of 10. For one pose on the second day of the workshop, this meant the background was painted at eight, the shadow areas in black, the dress with white, and the skin tones at value three. At this point, all of the critical work on the painting was done. The subject matter was sketched, the shapes were massed in, the values were correct. Color choices would be next, and this is the area where an individual’s artistic vision could emerge….

EDGAR PAYNE
Excerpted from Chapter 2 (Selection and Composition: Values) of Composition of Outdoor Painting (DeRu’s Fine Arts, Bellflower, California)

Rugged Peaks by Edgar Payne, oil, 50 x 50. Courtesy The Irvine Museum, Irvine, California.

“Dark and light usually refers to the range of values in the entire design while light and shade generally denote the lighted and shaded parts of single items. Both light and dark and light and shade are active factors in composition.

“The primary elements of the tonal scale are dark, light, and the halfway shade or half-tone. No modeling can be made with less than these three. Only one-half of any solid, round object may be seen or pictured from a given point. The visual facets cannot be modeled with only two of these primary shades. However, with the addition of the third, modeling may be roughly indicated and by the use of other intervening shades full picturization of the visual part of form can be made.

Sierra Lake by Edgar Payne, 1921, oil, 16 x 20. Courtesy The Red Fern Gallery, Laguna Beach, California.

“The lighted parts of objects are modified by the light cast upon them while the shaded parts are altered by the absence of light. The halfway tone between these two shades may be called the true value of the object.

“Light always creates values. Even on cloudy days out of doors there are always variations of shades in form. Modeling may be discerned even in moonlight or twilight—in fact, if there is light enough to see, modeling and values are always present.

“Values have a decided attraction of their own, entirely separate from color. This may often be seen in [black-and-white] photographic copies of paintings. These copies many times reveal qualities that do not show in the original. One reason for this is that values have a more massed appearance and the main areas are more unified. Another reason is the deepest dark in the painting may be much lighter than the darkest pigment, yet it will show up black in the photograph, therefore causing much more contrast and vitality….”

ANATOLY DVERIN
Excerpted from the “Assessing Progress, Making Changes” article by John A. Parks in the winter 2005 issue of Workshop.

Dverin added a white frame to his plein air work while he painted to help him better judge values.

Anatoly Dverin, who describes himself as an American Impressionist, teaches an open, painterly approach to plein air painting based on careful observation of value relationships and an intuitive handling of paint. …[During a workshop held in New York’s Hudson River Valley], he continually told students to look carefully at color and value, apply the paint boldly and with confidence, and to assess the painting’s progress. …

Dverin began [a demonstration] with a simple line sketch in a dull brown-green wash, establishing the horizon and indicating the position of two or three hay bales lying in the field. From then on he began to simply lay out values on the white canvas, patching the painting together with broad strokes of the brush. “I am always judging how light or dark one thing is next to another,” he told the students, “how warm or how cool, how powerful the color is.” He reminded students to always be aware of the lightest light and the darkest dark, pointing out that often an element in the landscape is brighter than the sky. …

Café in Provence by Anatoly Dverin, 2000, oil, 36 x 30. Private collection.

Toward the end of his demonstration, Dverin produced a simple white frame to put around his painting. This allowed him to cut the canvas off visually from the landscape in the background, an isolation that allowed him to judge the values more accurately. …

On the fifth day the class made a longer trip to paint at Olana, the home of the great Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church. Dverin set up in front of the house and fearlessly took on the whole view on a long horizontal canvas. This time he began on a ground that was toned a yellow ochre. … The nature of the panorama required him to be fairly careful at first as he laid in the close violets and blues of distant mountains. …

Dverin began by making the color livelier than it appeared and then, working over the top with whiter and grayer color, dragging the paint wet-in-wet so that it took on the impression of depth and air that he was looking for. For the trees in the foreground, he was careful to begin with very large and rather general shapes that he later refined with variations in color and depths in shadows.…

To read this article in its entirety, order a copy of the winter 2005 issue of Workshop.