In this project, you'll do Value Thumbnails to help you see value relationships and organize them into groups. You'll simplify the drawings into just 2 or 3 values. This practice will improve your ability to observe and interpret values in your drawings.

Thumbnails are small sketches. They are intentionally small to help you avoid drawing details. Don't draw the details! Focus on designing the large shapes and assigning them a value.

Reference

In the downloads, you’ll find several images of master paintings. Use the images I provided, and if there's another master painting you're excited about, feel free to study it as well.

Two-Value Studies

Two-value drawings (Notan) use just lights and darks. You'll choose a threshold: anything lighter goes into lights, anything darker into darks. This threshold is up to you, based on your interpretation of the image.

Lights
Darks

Three-Value Studies

Optionally, incorporate a mid value into your thumbnails. The mid value is useful for areas that aren't clearly light or dark and could belong to either group. Including this value helps to categorize those ambiguous areas.

Lights
Mids
Darks

Level 2: Still Life Photos

For more challenge, set up your own still life, compose, light, and photograph it. Use a direct and clear light source to create distinct light and dark areas. Choose a subject that interests you.

Then, do value thumbnail studies from your photo. This is harder since you're working from a photo, not a master paintings, which have a lot of the composing, designing, and simplifying already done. Photos present raw details and noise. You'll need to filter out unnecessary information, focusing on big shapes and value groups. Fight the urge to include all the details.

Remember, this project isn't about beautiful drawings. It's about improving specific skills to help you make beautiful drawings later.

Deadline - submit by Nov 15, 2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!

Luis Ángel Ruiz de Gopegui Rando

•

Well, here are my first thumbnails. I have to say they came out a bit big, to be honest... (about A4). I missed a fourth value. And I found the drawing difficult. I struggle to identify the correct values, and the boundaries between values aren't clear, I think. In short, quite an unexpected challenge...

Randy P

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13d

Worked through the 2-value and 3-value Notan studies. Tried a few different techniques on Procreate for shading.

@madin

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20d

I attempted to do all of the paintings by myself first, then checked it with the gradient maps to double check and make notes on what to fix. Definitely struggled with differentiating the background values.

The guy from BluishDot

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27d

(Resubmission) - first, "edgar-payne-2" before watching demos; - second "rembrandt" after watching Edgar Payne Boats silent demo; - third "cornwell" after watching Rembrandt Portrait silent demo. Feedback is highly appreciated.

@pmirko

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27d

this is so fun but so hard to do...tried different brushes and different approaches, but man 3 values sketch is though

@sweethouse

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1mo

May have spent too much time on details, I'll have to simplify my next attempts!

@sweethouse

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28d

Scott N

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2mo

Here is a selection of some of my efforts. I had a lot of fun with this and will do a heap more after I watch the critiques.

kutolia

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2mo

I liked working with artwork references for this project. Loved how different references are in terms of tones and number of details. And I can see I was more in a hurry with this assignment. I didn't post the first attempt, but watching demos definitely helped in making decisions.

Osagumwenro Igiehon

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2mo

Here are my attempts, for this round I wanted to be very strict and attempted all of them with 2 tones. I’ll go over some with 3 tones later. The 14th attempt was a piece by Goya which I’ve added. I’d say it was quite challenging. I think I got the best results when I tried to connect shapes together rather than leave them floating.

FlummoxMe

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2mo

This assignment introduced me to NC Wyeth and Dean Cornwell, who I want to adopt as art parents. I checked out a book from the library on Edward Hopper, and I’m hoping to use some of his works for more notan master study references.

@lauralana

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2mo

This is one of my favorite Hopper paintings and I love your study! Such a great idea to create Notan studies of Hopper paintings since he was such a master at painting light.

@lauralana

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2mo

Three value studies. Realized that I tend to make darker values midtones and midtones into darker values when they lay somewhere in between. This was a fun exercise! It also taught me a lot about how the masters spatially organized their paintings, especially Lepage and Rockwell. Really interesting to notice that!

FlummoxMe

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2mo

Your shading looks really clean. I like how the texture of the paper comes through!

Yevhen Syrchin

•

2mo

what do you think? I tried to simplify, but feels like made it too much

Thien Minh Pham

•

3mo

I really need feedback on mine I do find it hard to identify the shadow and light.

Osagumwenro Igiehon

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3mo

I think you did a great job with these! For identifying light and shadow I'd say really focus on trying to squint, It'll make it easier to identify what is light and what is shadow. Just keep at it!

Angelica

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3mo

I don’t feel that confident about this but I used the value tool to check myself and it seems like I am doing alright.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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3mo

The 3rd and 4th pages look especially nice

Theodor Urhed

•

3mo

Did the first half with HB mechanical pencil and the second batch with a wacom tablet.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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3mo

I think I like the pencil ones more. They are more interesting, especially the Sargent one.

I did not Want to see that

•

3mo

Second attempt on the level 2 assignment. The image is a little upclose since I did not put any borders around the drawing, so I thought it looked better this way, I would love to know if there are any points of improvement here! One word of advice i'd give myself is that I kinda shot myself in the foot by going so dark with a hb pencil, if I didn't I most likely could have reduced the amount of noise in the darker areas, but I guess doing more and more of these will help with that. I also tried to do little to no detail at all and just focusing on the larger, clustered shapes, was that a good call?

Brian Judy

•

3mo

I love your choice of values for your composition. Came out really great

Melanie Scearce

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3mo

Yes, this looks awesome!

Laurie

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3mo

I haven't been drawing for a while, but trying to get back into it now. I'll do more notans (they are pretty cool!) but posting my attempt at the boats. The 3 shades looked cleaner on the paper, but in the photo I can see all the areas that were not properly filled in!

Rachel Dawn Owens

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3mo

Nice start!

I did not Want to see that

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4mo

my level 2 assignment. I decided to go with hatching this time, since I think that is the most satisfying way of shading, but along the way I stopped focusing on it as much as I used to, so for this level 2 assignment I just decided to go with hatching. It's not perfect, so if anyone has some tips I'd gladly take any! I also did not draw the full photo and decided to mainly focus on the skull.

Melanie Scearce

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3mo

I ran this image through the value study tool (https://www.proko.com/values). It makes real easy to see the larger value shapes. That would be my main critique, is to focus on designing your shapes rather than drawing what you see for this exercise. The concept of the thumbnail sketch is to help you identify values in a composition, so it would be beneficial for you to include the entire image when you are making these thumbnails. This is a cool image to work from!

ANX804U

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4mo

late af, but here we are for level 2. level 1 in critique sec.

I did not Want to see that

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4mo

caught up with the most recent project! I did a 2 value one and a three value one. Any points I can improve on? Should I have been a little bit more detailed with the 3 value one perhaps? Letting me know any of my mistakes helps me out a ton, so I have a lot of gratitude for that On an unrelated note, now that I have caught up I was thinking on buying the anatomy of the human body course, figure drawing fundementals course, perhaps the new upcoming gesture course or even the figure construction one. Does anybody have any tips for me on what would be the best to buy first? I was more inclined to buy the figure drawing fundemental course or the anatomy of the human body one, but I am not sure what would be the better/wiser choice? Any advice?

Amani Noor (Amu)

•

3mo

Overall, I think you've done a great job separating your values clearly and you have a nice balance of big, medium, and small shapes. Your shading is also very nice and clean. I think you could make these thumbnails even better if you work a little smaller (to prevent adding too much detail) and think more about big swatches of value rather than focusing on the exact contour of the shapes. So you will be thinking more about the size, value, and placement of a shape rather than what the shape itself looks like. Your shapes are nicely designed and could be even better if you added some sharper corners to them in places, so that you have a balance of straights and curves. Great job! I am no expert on anatomy or figure drawing but I have heard Stan advise to do figure drawing before anatomy, as the anatomy course assumes you already know some concepts that are covered in the figure drawing course. Hope this helps!

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Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.