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Doing A Value Study

Tips from Today’s Session

Students, following are a couple of things to remember as you develop the value studies  and plan for your final canvas:

  1. Begin working your idea as a sketch, on sketch paper
  2. Ideally, put a ground on your intended painting support (canvas paper, poster board) to begin your “value study” before you apply glaze washes of pigment
  3. If you began by sketching your idea on the support (no sketch paper, see 4) without putting a ground on it you need to seal the pencil drawing by putting a glaze wash of pigment/water on the support  before you can begin to place darker values on to the line study.    If you don’t you will obliterate your image.
  4. Don’t try to put the glaze wash on sketch paper—the paper is not a sturdy support and your image is likely to be washed away and the paper will become crumply’
  5. If your support is water color paper use 140lb cold press, size it with water, dry it and tape it flat
  6.  Once you have your image secure under a transparent glaze wash of pigment, begin adding value changes (shading) in the areas that you wish to be darker and/ or a different pigment color.  Keep the glaze washes transparent, even if they are dark.
  7. If you get to dark in an area, put a white transparent glaze wash over the area, or the entire support if required, and go at it again
  8. Once you feel satisfied with the value ranges established on that support—have another support ready to draw on and begin a different combination of glaze washes using the color charts you made to select your color scheme from.
  9. You should try three or four color schemes and possibly a rearrangement of your original sketch idea to fully develop the plan for your painting.

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