The ART of THICK PAINT

27. Value

NINE VALUE GRAYSCALE

One afternoon I was looking out a window and noticed a small speck of dirt on the glass. I discovered if I closed one eye and positioned the speck over the shadow side of a distant tree the speck looked white. If I moved so the speck was positioned over the light part of the tree the speck looked black. Obviously, the value of the speck was not changing. The speck looked different because of changing contrast. For me, this experience very powerfully demonstrated, once and for all, the relativity of value.

The phenomenon also suggested a way to devise a grayscale that would be more accurate and easier to use than some I had previously used. I salvaged a piece of plastic from a discarded package and cut it into a rectangle. Along one edge I painted a series of dots using the seven grayscale acrylic pigments made by Golden Acrylics, plus black and white. I painted the dots starting with black on the left, then value number two, then value number three, and so on, finishing the series with a white dot on the very right. I then numbered the nine dots from one to nine. Just like the gray speck on the window I use these dots to identify exact values. As long as the light source is identical on the grayscale and the color you are evaluating your judgment of values will be extremely accurate.

Why is the ability to paint accurate value so important? Strong, discrete value zones are essential to create the pattern necessary for strong composition. Early in my painting career I tended to force values into the very dark and very light, neglecting the subtle and beautiful intermediate values. I got this habit from practicing the art of the woodcut in which I thought in terms of black and white. Others tend to use only the middle values neglecting the deep darks and brilliant lights that give depth.

I have heard the claim that the eye can only differentiate from nine to ten different values. Amsell Adams effectively used a value system where he forced the nearly infinite values of black-and-white photography into only ten values. He developed this theory by observing the more discrete values of landscape painting. John F. Carlson, in his famous book on landscape painting, advocates a similar idea but suggests limiting values to four or five.

By using nine values I can force the values into sets of two or three and still maintain the broad patterns advocated by Carlson, or I can use the entire nine for a more full value, tonalist effect. I find that having nine values on one grayscale gives me more control which is absolutely necessary in the high-wire-act of thick painting.

VALUE ZONES

As mentioned previously, it is important for a painting to look good at 60 feet, at 6 feet, and at 6 inches. A viewer's first impression is from a distance. If there isn't some quality that invites the viewer to come closer, the vast majority of positive qualities you have painted into your work will go unnoticed.

So how do you make a painting look good from 60 feet? The answer is to compose using large patterns of interlocking values. Every painting should be designed with four to five major values. These four or five zones should be one solid value with slight value modulations within them. Some painters claim that the beauty of painting comes from the slight modulations of value within these basic value zones.

If you paint the sky in one solid value you will find that when you paint in slightly with different values the basic value will have a kind of momentum which will bias any value that you paint into that basic value zone. (Remember that I am talking about value here not hue. A vibrant sky should have several different hues of one basic value).

When I paint the differing value zones I generally start with the sky, usually a value seven or eight. The trees are the darkest, as upright objects reflecting the least light, and are usually in the two to three value range. So after I lay in this basic value I then paint the lighter portions using a value of four or five (for light hitting the foliage) and the underlying value of two will maintain the overall value integrity. In other words, the original value will persist and bias the value as I paint different values into that zone.

Remember painting with thick paint is an art, not a science, and I only use what seems like a very disciplined technique to reach a specific objective; thick, juicy, vibrating color that convincingly portrays the beauty of the natural world.