Just as a person can sense who God is by looking at His creation, a person should be able to sense something about an artist by looking at their artwork. - Jill

Design 1

I believe that a great painting isn’t framed by what is wrapped around the outside, it's framed by a great design on the inside!

To get the most out of your subject matter, it is very important to create a good design. If you have something to say, focus on what you are saying (the focal point). The area around the focal point will be the accompaniment.

If a pianist is the central figure in a concert, the piano music is the focal point. All of the other instruments play beautiful music, supporting the pianist, not competing for attention!

I am a big believer in making thumbnail sketches before starting a painting. They are quick, easy, and cause the artist to think through what they're about to do. They are the equivalent to an outline in writing a story. I usually make several thumbnail sketches to see which one I like the best.

Value Applications

General Art Theory

On the left is a grey scale of ten values. On the right is an Ingres

painting with the color removed. Without the color, you can see the values that the artist used.

The following statements are a guide used by the Old Masters:

Mid-Tones should occupy 70% of your painting. Light-Tones should occupy 20% of your painting. Dark-Tones should occupy 10% of your painting. The painting on the right is a good example of this.

Expression

Van Gogh once said that his strokes of paint came like speech. That is what we do as artists. The canvas is our journal and we express ourselves with unspoken word. Every one of my paintings is a personal diary of my thoughts and my feelings. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I wonder what a painting is worth?

Leonardo da Vinci Quote

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art. (Leonardo da Vinci)

Leonardo Da Vinci and Value

Leonardo Da Vinci was a master at capturing and portraying value changes. His skillful use of light and dark defined three-dimensional shape known as chiaroscuro, a style of shading that dominates tone (brightness) more than color.

Leonardo was a painter, a sculptor and an architect. He was a master in each art form and a brilliant conveyor of life.

Value Study With Ink

This is a value study with found objects from the beach. I used watercolor paper, black waterproof ink, one round brush, and a bamboo pen. I filled ten sections of an empty styrofoam egg container with water. I added one drop of black ink in the first section, two drops in the second, three in the third, until all ten were filled. I incorporated all ten values from light to dark in this painting.  Rembrandt, Albert Bierstadt, and Winslow Homer were masters at displaying remarkable tonal values.

©1990 till present, value study by Jill Saur, all rights reserved

Values In Painting - Art Class Roswell, GA.

VALUES IN PAINTING by Jill Saur

The paintings below are by Winslow Homer. The first painting is the original.  The second painting is the same one.  I removed the color from the second image to see the tonal values.

Lightness or tonal value is the light or dark of a color, regardless of its hue. Creating a black and white painting is very helpful to train your eye to perceive value.

Sometimes it’s easier to classify values into three groups: lights, darks, and mid-range.  Roughly, values from one through three are the lightest values.  Values from four through seven are the mid values, and values from eight through ten are the darkest values.  A general guide is that mid-tones should occupy 70% of your painting, the lightest lights 20%, and the darkest darks should occupy 10% of your work.

If I'm going to paint from a photo that I take, the first thing I do is put it in a photo program and I turn it into a black and white image.  When I do this, I know immediately if the image has a good range to make the composition interesting as well as intriguing.

A number of my students have been working on value drawings and paintings.  I hope this tip helps you see the importance of training your eye to see and use value changes in your artwork.

www.JillSaurFineArt.com

Alla Prima

Alla Prima describes paintings which are completed at one sitting. I painted this alla prima at The Bay of Silence, in Italy.

Alla Prima painting techniques were frequently used by the old masters. They used this technique for making studies and sketches. They also used alla prima when completing a painting that already had an underpainting on it. In Italian, alla prima means, 'at first'.

Painting Journal

I keep a painting journal for most of the paintings that I do. I make a preliminary sketch, write down the colors that I end up using, and any special techniques that I discover. I also write my thoughts as to what inspired me to do the painting. If a palette turns out to be spectacular, it helps to have it written down for future paintings. When I finish my painting, I take my archived picture of the painting, print it up and put in in my journal. I hope this helps. - Jill