As my new class semester starts up this week teaching at
LAAFA, I am brushing off my dusty teaching aides, pouring the left-over Bollinger down the sink and thinking time to get serious!
Ok...ok..it has only been two weeks and there was no Bolly and the aides aren't dusty. But I came across these quotes on the Internet, courtesy of The Painter's Keys, specifically on values which I found rather interesting and perfect timing - so I am going to share some with you!
It is all in the values. And I enjoy the challenge of them How to keep it simple. I post a portrait commission of mine, one in color, the other in black and white to show you my value thinking and how much importance I place on a simplified five value system.
John Singer Sargent - Color is an inborn gift but appreciation of value is merely training of the eye, which everyone ought to be able to acquire. ( Ahhh..from the painting God himself..JS)
Harley Brown - When it comes to values, that's when we find most paintings boring and others will knock your socks off.
William Morris Hunt - It is impossible to make a picture without values. Values are the basis. If they are not, tell me what is the basis?
Steve Childs: Value (or the use of light) is our best ally as a painter. Don't think for a minute this is not in the artist's control
Paul de Marrais: When beginning artists understand and use values for the first time, there is usually a quantum leap in the quality of their painting. (How true! Especially if they don't argue back...JS)
Ray Ward: I prefer to work on a toned ground as it makes it easier to establish the values in the early stages. (See, I am not crazy JS)
Eric Wiegardt: Problems with color are almost never problems with color. They are almost always problems with value. (What no chalky color excuse? JS)
Tom Lynch: The best way to show depth is to have variation in values. The best way to learn this is to paint without color. (Darn it..those atelier schools were on to something. Shame we stopped painting in black and white from cast for three years isn't it? We might all be really good now. JS)
Emily Moore: Bowing to value can liberate color options, so color can waltz in the back door and right on down to the front row while value is being courted at the front door. ( I don't know who Emily is but she should be a writer clearly and forget about painting. JS)
Kenn Backhaus: Establishing the two most extreme values as soon as possible helps me take note of all the other values that will fall somewhere in between.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: In preparing a study or a picture, it seems to me very important to begin by an indication of the darkest values.... and to continue in order to the lightest value. From the darkest to the lightest I would establish twenty shades.
Stephen Quiller: It is the relationship of value and intensity that is essential to using color well. If you master value and intensity, you will go a long way to expressing any mood you desire.
Barry John Raybould: Many of the most powerful paintings have the simplest value structures. That is to say, they use only two, three, for four major values. (SEE, told ya..! JS)
Theodore Robinson: My paintings cannot be a negation of what has always been and always will be necessary - drawing and search for values. (Hear, hear! JS)
Martha Saudek: You get color with your eyes wide open, your value by squinting. ( YEP! No botox for me, these are not frown lines, they are squint lines. JS)
Richard Schmid: YOu can stick with a few clear-cut values, which are stronger than a multitude of values and will obviously yield a stronger painting. But not all subjects or light conditions appear that way...be sensible and paint with values that are appropriate and faithful to your subject.
Joe Singer: To me, painting- all painting - is not so much the intelligent use of color s the intelligent use of value. If the values are right, the color cannot help but be right.
John F. A. Taylor: There are painters like Ingres who know how to dispense with hues and saturation. There is no painting which can dispense with values.
Everett Raymond Kinstler, N.A.: Think value first, then color...Ask yourself is what I am mixing relating to the light, shadow or halftone.
