On January 21, Bill Fulton gave a demo on values. Values refer to how light or how dark objects or areas in your painting are. We need some light areas, some dark areas, some middle areas. A good painting has distinct values with clear shifts between values.
Bill showed us the values in some of his paintings, and painted a couple of value sketches for us.
Notes from his presentation:
The light from the sky is usually the brightest area in the painting.
When it hits the ground, some of the light is absorbed in the ground, so it is slightly darker.
When there is a vertical object, the light is blocked so it shows up as a very dark value.
When there is a hill or mountain, it shows up as somewhat dark.
To summarize:
The sky is the lightest value
The ground is next lightest
Mountains and hills are next lightest
Trees, houses and people are darkest
