Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hey, thanks for joining
me in my studio and coming online to
check out my class. Got my coffee. That
means I'm ready. Come on in. Let's
check out this class. What we're doing today is
we're looking at coloring with n. Values is one of those core principles
in painting and art. That real when understood, improve your artwork dramatic. And what it really does is give you control over
what you're seeing and what you're laying down on your canvas in terms of colors and the choices that I
say it's for learners, because that's
exactly what it is. It's, it's for learners,
that's for anybody, whether you're a beginner or whether you're
a professional. The opportunity to
learn is every day. And I think that's
part of the joy of being an artist is
that you do get to practice and get to
learn and you get to share. I envelope big, big, big, big believer that
anyone could draw. I've had so many friends. Tell me, well, I'm not an
artist, I can't do that. And I just say it's
just a matter of practice and learning
concepts like this. My name is James Prozac. I known as Edison James
in my career endeavors, something I loved to do
is illustrate and paint. I've gotten into digital
artwork in recent years and that's why I'm now
teaching things like this. This is just something
I really loved it. But I am a 24-year plus professionally in the design
and marketing industry. I've done branding, logo design, websites, and all
of those things. Here's one of the things
that I really love in painting is painting light. I love. I love when I get into
light and shadows. And that's really what we're
gonna be looking at today is understanding how to bring a painting in a piece
of work to life. You can create mood and
atmosphere and emotion in the painting by being able to extract a value in the
work that you're doing. So value is very important in doing a
great piece of work. So we're gonna be looking
at what is valued. We're gonna be looking
at tints and shades. We're gonna be looking
at values in colors. We're also going to be taking on a little project
and we're gonna be applying the things we
learned about value to that. It's going to have
to do with this. We're going to take an apple. We're going to see
what we can do it that the best way to follow this
lesson is to do it digitally. I'm gonna be doing it digital. But at the same time you can pull out your colored pencils. Hello, chalk, or any paint. Just need to pull out some
paper and a pad and you're good to go and you can apply
it in the way you want. When you want, just do
it at your own pace, whatever works for
you, That's cool. So let's get into
lesson number one.
2. What is Value: The big question is, what is value and
why is it important? Value is, in simplicity, it's the amount of black or white that you apply
to a color or hue. So in simple terms, the more black that you apply, the darker the value, the more white that you apply, the lighter the value. And so it just makes sense
that things in the shadow would probably have
some more black in, injected into those colors. And then also things
that are in the light, in the sunlight that are
glowing a little bit, that are capturing
a little bit of a. You can even see on the
side of my face here. You can see the value
changed immediately when I turned my light to face my, my cheek. You can. And if I were painting, that would inject a
whole lot of white into the colors that
might be on my face. If we took something
like this, aqua blue. Here's an original whew
that we're going to base our changes on. And so if you could imagine us now trying to
paint something, let's say it wasn't some water or an object that was
painted with this color. And now we're going to
add some light to it. And so what you would do is add white to that original whew. And that's called tinting. And then if you do the
opposite where you begin to add black to something, it goes into the shadows
and you can begin to see a change by
adding shading. So tinting is adding
white to an original hue. And shading is when you add
black to that original whew, everything that we
see has a value. It doesn't matter what
object in the room you, if you look around the room, you're looking at
an array of values. Being able to see it and
understand what you're seeing will make a
difference in how you paint. So we're gonna take our
example of this apple. You can see if you just
look at it, it's red. But within the context
of that red palette, you see some dark colors. You see some light colors. The little spots where the light is capturing
it on the top, there's a little
bit of splash of light that's hitting the surface on the sides and the edges, the color changes there because the value begins to change. If we look very closely,
you can extract, with that, read a bunch
of different red values. Some of them are darker and the shadows and some of
them are lighter as the, as the surface is
touched by the light. You can also see it in the leaf. There's a bit of a
curve in the leaf. You can see in places
There's a bit of a lighter color of green
and the curves and Travis, as you can see,
there's a shadow. And so the value gets a little bit darker in those places. However, I will say this, that are AI plays tricks in how we can perceive
where the value is. The thing to really
understand is that it's these values that give shape
and contour to an object, the light like an apple. If you didn't have
those different values, you would lose
that 3D dimension. And it would begin to flatten. So next we're going to
look at values in color.
3. Color and Values: Values in color is where it
does start to get tricky. And the reason is
that our mind can struggle to perceive which color has more value or less value. You could even look at a color palette and you
would think that you know, which is the darkest, most rich color on
the color palette. Or in that object. You could even look
at an object like that apple and you
might think you know, where the darkest reds are, the darkest colors in that, in that object are. Your mind sometimes really is tricked by the
saturation of a color. We often will look
at something and mistake the value
for the saturation. Things that are brighter, things that have
more intense color, we can think have more value. An interesting little thing
that we can do here is to look at the old color wheel. Now we're just looking
at this wheel. We might think we know where
the darkest colors are. For example, if I look at the color wheel, I
might think that this, this color that's between
the blue and the purple, kind of that dark blue,
dark purply color. I would probably
guess that that's the darkest color
on the color wheel. I might guess that the yellow is the lightest color
on the color wheel. Then you can kind of go from
there you think, Oh, well, for sure this green is darker than this
yellow and orange. I mean, we have a way
of looking at things. Surely this magenta color is
darker than the red color. We could guess. But the way to really know where the value is most intense is
by just going and changing it to a gray scale. When we convert it
to a grayscale, we see something
interesting happening. Sometimes things that we
think are darker art. Like, for example, if we
look down, down here, this color right here seems to be lighter than
the color next to it. It even seems to be lighter
than these colors over here. Also this color down
here, which was a blue. It's one of the lightest
colors on the wheel. You put it next to any of these colors here
and it's way lighter. So what color was that? Let's go back. That bright blue
for some reason is, has less value, is a lighter value than
this blue next to it. This turquoise, blue is
considered darker in value. You can also see this
color right here. I think it was this color
that was considered lighter than even some of these colors next to it.
Let's take a look again. So yeah, it has a
lighter value to it. It's interesting. So our mind when we
look at a painting, when we look at an object, we might think we
understand the values. But may maybe we don't. I want you to look
at the darkest color in the color wheel. Just these are just
regular saturations. These are just base color. There's nothing that's really, really dark, and there's nothing that's
really, really white. If we go over to the next slide and we'll
go back to these apples. You'll notice that in order
to get to a darker shade, you have to get into these deeper reds and look
how dark these reds are. Dark, the color is
underneath the leaf. In order for it to appear
as kind of a black color. It needs to get into the blacks. It needs to get really dark. If it doesn't, then it even starts to look very light gray. You look at the top here. There's a lot of light,
light colors up here. When we begin to paint, sometimes when we don't understand how dark
or dark needs to get for it to really have
a lot of weight to it. We get into a very
muddy area and we start painting
a lot like this. Everything begins even
though you're looking at the color and you see a
lot of difference here. In context of a painting, it might end up looking
really muddy and flat. Everything has the same value. Again, remember, in order to create contour and dimension, you get, you need to get into bringing a lot of
darks and a lot of lights. Some people, they like to stay within a very narrow range of value because they like
a certain color palette. Though. There's a lot of people
who like to stay in the lighter range and there's nothing wrong
with that either. For me, if you want to achieve those really dramatic
atmospheric kind of paintings with a
lot of backlighting. You do need to really explore the range of value
available to you.
4. Project Set Up: When we're going into the
project part of this lesson. And what you're gonna wanna
do is get into Photoshop. And I'm going to bring
us over there right now. You can see I've done a
little bit of prep work so that it will speed up
the process for this. But if you want it to do the same, You're
more than welcome. You can see from 0 to 100, I've traded a spectrum. This represents the range of values that you might
see in a painting. So of course, 100 is full
intensity black value, 0% is full intensity
white value. When we think of an object in the reality
of what those values are, or we can convert
it to a grayscale, like we would see here. But then if we want to
apply color to that, this is a little trick
that you can do. So you want to create a color
layer that goes over top. And what we're gonna do is
we're going to paint over top of this range and
apply a color to it. And it's going to give us
a spectrum of that color. But what we're gonna be
painting is an apple. What color might we need? Let's start pulling some
reds into this painting. I'll show you what I mean. So I have a color
layer over top of this range and we're
gonna go with red. And that's what it does. I now have a full spectrum of red based on the full
range of values. We're gonna do the
same thing to green. I'm going to want
green in my Apple. On kind of a yellowy, probably a little bit
of a yellowy green. Let's see what this looks like. There's a full range. I'm going to want some other
colors for my color palette. I often like pulling
a purply color into a painting like this. So let's, let's do that. I may also like to pull in a
little bit of a blue color. There might be a stem
involved on the apple. So we're going to pull
in a brown color. There's a full spectrum of colors in all the different
values from 0 to 100.
5. Project - Initial Base Value Painting: The purpose of this
demonstration is to show what the impact of the full range
of value has on a painting. We're gonna do three apples. The last apple, we're
gonna get to use the absolute full range of the color spectrum that's going to make the
Apple come to life. But the first two, we're gonna be restricted. The first one we can
only use from the 20, 80% area of the range. The next one, we're
going to open up the ten and the nine. And then of course the last
one we get the full range. But what it's going
to show you is how much more depth you get
by adding the full spectrum. So to start, we're gonna do a
quick sketch. I'm an apple. It doesn't have to be the
best apple you've ever seen, but we just want to make it
an apple that we can color. Choose your favorite
kind of, well, I'm doing a Macintosh because the Macintosh McIntosh has the green at the
top of the apple. Because I want to get a
nice demonstration of red and green and effect. We're going to throw in a leaf. You only need to start with one. Apple. On digital, we're going to paint the one and
then we're going to duplicate it so that we
can compare the two. And we're going to start off doing the for painting
with the limited range. We're gonna do the second
one. We're going to add in the extra values over top. And then the third one we're
going to add on the extra, if you're doing it on
paper with pencil, crayon, or chalk or any other
supplies you can, you can just layered on top
of your own painting, but it, or maybe you can
snap a picture with your phone just to
see the first one. And then you can see the
evolution to compare. That'll help you to just
really grasp the concept. Okay, we've got our apple. Let's start by coloring it. Now remember we can
only use 80 to 20 here. I'm going to do a
little something for myself so that I know
it's off-limits. So I can first painting is here. I can do anything between
anything between here, anything between 2080 I can use. And of course, we're going to start with the red of our Apple. This is not going to be the most realistic
apples we've ever seen. And that's fine. Because we're not
doing this to perfect, we're doing this to practice. Here I'm using 70% range
just as a base for my apple. Now I'm going to
add in some 80% red because the bottom of the apple
will have some shadowing. I'm going to make the
shadow will be on the right side of the apple. Will be some shadowing, no doubt in there. Then we get more on the left, that's where the light source
is going to come from. We're going to make
those areas green. Top of this apple is
going to be green. Right? Now we want to, Let's see if we can get
a little bit more dark. I can get a little darker. Again, we're trying to create the form of the apple and
to give that 3D look to it. The only way to do that is
to have access to arrange. So that might mean
I have to push this back a little bit here in the middle to allow the
outside to be a little darker. You want it to be a
little brighter on this side of the
apple because there's light coming from this slide.
We'll push that a bit. Let's get some of the light greens coming now because we have
access to those colors. Back of the apple
will catch the light. This is our lightest color that we have access
to right now. I just need some
splashes of that. Really get the
effect of contour. You can see it's
looking pretty 3D. And this is where
I get some purple. Again, this helps
give dimension. When you add some
cameras like this on the back half little bit, then a little bit of blue
again for the same effect. Backlighting. The blue. The reason I like
the blue and the apples, because it can also be
compliments the green a little bit so you can pull
it into the green to give it a little bit more depth. You see how that's working. Now I'm going to add some
shadow underneath our apple. Shadowing is another
way of making. Making, if you'd like
it's in a space. That's what this is all about. I'm going to read in
that shadow as well. There's always light refraction when you're painting shadows. That means that the
red from the apple is probably bouncing against
the surface of the base. And we're doing the stem here. So let's get on the stem.
Let's make sure we get. Then let's paint our leaf, kind of a middle green. Let's continue with edges. Okay, That's our first apple. I'm going to turn off the
black outline because we, again, that might because
I turned off the outline, I can see that it probably needs to just a little bit more. Maybe I can erase some
of the extraneous. Just want to tidy up
the edges a little bit. See if I can get this inside
a little bit darker here. That's the part where it's hard. You can't you can't
get into those. You're trying to give
it that look of shape. But you don't have
the color options. Let me do that. So I'm mixing some
colors in there to try to more dark green in there. Alright. Okay, so that's our start. Let's
get a little bit. We never really got the accents
in the apple down here. That'll help a bit. Okay, we're doing our
best with what we got. Well, let's shuffle this
guy over a little bit. Sorry. A perfectionist in me, I'm fighting against it, but it comes. Okay.
6. Project - Introducing Strong Values: I'm going to make a
grouping out of this apple. We're going to duplicate
it and bring it over here. Upload here. So we
have apple number two. Apple number two, we agreed that we're now going to
have access to this. We're getting close to
100%, still not there. And let's, let's get in here
and paint apple number two. With access to more color. This is now, we're now on 90%. Take a look at how
it's already making. Things deepen. You're getting a lot
more contour and shape. It's getting to the green now. We're getting into
the darker greens through parts of the apple. We can get into the darker green on the inside of the apple. Now, I can get down to the ten per
cent to get a couple. I'll wait for that. Now we're not needing to
repaint the whole apple. We're just needing
to get down into the areas where we can push
the darker a little bit more. We can pull the
bright a little bit more because we haven't, we have access to more color. Let's see what else we
can get some more red or blue that we can pull. And I don't use the
blue lot anyway, so don't make a big difference. That darker purple
will come in handy. Does is give a little
bit more color. You see the difference
that makes, let's get the brown
into the stem. Dark green can come
into the leaf, the underside of the leaf. And we can get more
shadow underneath. That shadow has a stick
around. Object a lot. See the difference. Should
be seeing the difference. Now. I might even look at
this and be like, I'm happy with this now, got our need to
do anything else. And that would be fair. But what happens if we
take it one more step? Now we can get into full black. So I'm going to start
with the shadow. Let's get into the air. Usually when you're getting
into the full block, you're not you don't you
don't need to use it much. You're, you're highlighting your getting into the
little dark corners. And it makes a real difference. See that you don't even need to really get into the leaf because I
don't think we're going to leave as little bit of
an afterthought. I barely done anything at that. You probably go back
and make them all a little bit prettier,
but it's okay. Let's, let's get
into the bottom of the Apple two now. Good work. We don't need to use. This is using the
black in the note. Wanna get much. But look at the difference
it makes in form. This is what makes things really sprang to
life when you're painting. We also have white. I
never did the whites yet. Excellently painted
onto the sea. That makes such a difference. It's amazing. I love
seeing things like this happen in transpire
and come to life. And that's the impact of value
has on all the painting.
7. Greyscale Overview & Conclusion: The last thing that
we're gonna do here, let's take a look
at what we did and the difference that we did when we see
this in gray scale, look the difference in value. The apple on the left, we were using the full
intensity of what we've thought of what was
available to us. And I think a lot of times
the hesitation to paint dark, dark, and bright, bright. Something that a lot of us have. Remember when we were looking in the slideshow and we'd
looked at the color wheel. When you're looking in color, you think you're painting dark. You think you're, you're
really getting into shadows. And you're not, you're not
even close to the dark, dark that you could go into. But because you're looking at it in color and you've
been painting, he knew like the
direction it's going. You haven't yet. Like sometimes when
you're painting faces, a person that might
have long hair, their hair might wrapped
around the back of their ear. That little area in there. If you don't paint
it with the dark, dark or the nostril,
you don't get them. The nostrils with the dark, dark or the pupil get in
there with the dark, dark. You lose some of the
forum or the possibility. Little flecks of
light on the eyeball. A little tip of the nose that's being lit up by the sunshine. The curve of the
back of the face. That's refracting light, that's picking up refracted light. You don't get the
whites in there and you lose the opportunity
to have a lot for. So that's why understanding
this, you don't have to, There's a lot of painters
that'll paint in that more medium or
they'll paint to one side. They won't have the white
lights or they won't have the dark darks, That's fine. But if you don't understand
what you're looking at, then you don't even have
the option for that because you're afraid to go there or
because you don't see it. Seeing it like this, I recommend when you're
doing something. Briefly take a look
at it. In gray scale. If you're doing digital, Take a look, see what it looks like. You're doing a painting,
ticket picture of it. Convert your picture
to a grayscale. Take a look at it on your phone. You what it looks
like in gray scale. Have you really got
into the darks? Are you missing something? That's a little trick I have. I think this is a great thing to have in your toolbox
for painting. It'll make a big difference. I hope this helps with
your painting practice and as you're working on things, it gives you a couple more tools to take your paintings
maybe to another level. Thanks for watching. I
really appreciate it. We'll see you maybe
in another tutorial.
James Rozak, Design, Art, Illustration & Coffee
