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About instructor
Former program director at Barcelona Academy of Art. Passionate about teaching craft and exploring the inner game of art.
LESSON NOTES
Check out the "Assignments" tab to get the assignment details and share your work!
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ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Aubrey Hannah]()
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![@arminwidmann]()
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![Aubrey Hannah]()
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![Dedee Anderson Ganda]()
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![Aubrey Hannah]()
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![Kyle Adam]()
Overview
It's time to practice your value organization skills! Your goal with a value study is to accurately and succinctly represent the visual essence of the subject. In this project, you'll organize the tonal values of an image into 4 value groups.
Materials Needed
- The project image. (See download section.)
- You can do the value study in any medium, drawing or painting, digital or traditional. Choose the medium you are most comfortable with.
- If you work in traditional media, you might want to print the project image for reference.
Steps
- Download the project image.
- Begin your value study by keying the image.
Identify and place the lightest and darkest value groups. (Do not choose black or white. Instead, pick average values for the lightest and darkest regions of the image.) - Add the third and fourth value groups. Balance all groups in such a way that you match the effect of your value study to the effect of the original as much as possible.
- You can include gradients, but do so carefully.
- Upload your study alongside the original image.
Duration
This project should take 20–40 minutes to complete.
Guiding Questions
- Did I stay organized and limited to 4 value groups?
- Do the relationships between these value groups represent the visual essence well?
- Did I complete the value study in 20–40 minutes? (If it takes longer, you probably got sucked into over-focusing on proportions or edges, or your technique for filling in areas of tone is inefficient.)
- Did I use a few strategically placed soft edges to dramatically improve the similarity between my value study and the subject?
- Are the proportions close enough to recognize the subject reasonably well?
Took me a couple of attempts, but I figured out a clean separation of values, with only a couple of gradients along the cylinder and sphere. Blending seems to be a useful tool for smoothing out noise in graphite. It also looks like it can do well creating gradients for the space between halftones and highlights.
Hah, I totally get what you mean. I've always found shading to be one of the most difficult concepts to master.
Forgot the upper plane of the cylinder, but since using brightest value breaks the effect, I give it the second value even tho it is darker
Hi! Awesome exercise, to identify the values areas. I tried to do it on Photoshop, but I am not very skilled with digital illustration. Anyway, if I correctly identified the values I will be satisfied.
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2yr
Looks like you're on the right track! Just be careful with the form shadow on the sphere, as it seems to be darker like the cast shadow on the floor rather than the light grey of the objects. Also, it serves to note the angle that the cast shadows appear on, to make the light scenario consistent. The study has them going closer to the viewer rather than away.
Other than that, solid job -- keep up the good work, you got this :)
Took about 40 minutes. I messed up with the print and decided to scale down a bit, my drawing is 10x9 cm. I started with filling in the lightest areas which was very hard, with a 2H. I couldn't fill in the lightest area entirely using the lightest pressure I could manage without it getting too dark; I opted for barely-there lines (tips appreciated!). Next, average shadow areas with 2B. Then, the halftones with some pressure and several passes with 2H in all directions, and lastly background and cast shadows with 2B. At first I was struggling to choose a proper value for the table surface - halftone or average shadow? but then I looked carefully and realized the table surface is getting gradually darker to the left, as are the object shadows. So I decided to use the same value. Finished up with a tiny gradient at the top of the cylinder (questionable result so I kind of regret it a bit) and some lost/soft edges.
Ah, yes. I found lighter values to be very challenging. Recently I've considered using a lighter pencil for the softest mid-tones and brightest highlights. Perhaps a 3H or higher?
As far as gradients go, I decided to go with one for the sphere's dark half and the other for the transition between the cylinder's form light and mid-tones.
Hello, here is my 4-Tones Value assignment. It took me about 40 mins. There are still some "unsure" values for me, for example: "Is the top of cube belongs to lightest tone or halftone? ", but through this course I finally started to understand how to tell values.
My four values were the cast shadow, form shadow, dark halftones & lightest light. I used the form shadow value for the dark background, and the dark halftones for the ground plane. Also went with the controversial dark halftones for the reflected light in the sphere. The study doesn't photograph well, but I think the "Effect" comes through for me.
