Tip: Large and Simple Values

Much has been said about the importance of value in composition. In fact, value is often given greater significance than any other element of design, especially with regard to color. What we don't often hear is how values can be used to give beauty to a painting, as beauty is most often associated with form and color.

In Harold Speed's book Oil Painting Techniques and Materials he describes this unique quality of value in the following way:

"The particular beauty that is associated with tone values is most in evidence when the tones are large and simple, and not much disturbed by variety... Anything in the nature of broken color that would too much disturb the purity of tone, is against the expression of this particular beauty."

Another way to think about the same concept is to consider what one will see in your painting from across the room. From a distance the large value masses are the only things that will be visible. These value masses must be interesting enough to draw a viewer to the painting before other design elements can be appreciated.

Harold compares the effects of "large and simple" values to the beautiful tones associated with music or sound.

"Beauty of tone is like a long-sustained melody played on a violin, the quality of which depends on each note being held in great purity, and separateness, from each other note. Any scratchiness of tone or variety introduced will destroy the beauty of the melody. And in painting the quality of tone beauty depends on the evenness and sustained nature of the different tones in the picture, and their distinctness from each other; each note in the scale of values being as separate and well marked as possible."

Every work of art can benefit from the interest and drama that is possible only through effective use of values. A composition based on large and simple value masses can be both dramatic and easy to comprehend. Just look at Whistler's portrait of his own mother arranged in simple greys and black. How many value masses do you see? Are the masses simple or complex?

Ian Roberts, author of Mastering Composition, offers the following exercise to help artists see and simplify value masses in a composition.

"Try working out the three or four major value masses of your next painting with three gray markers and see how it changes the way you think about abstract shapes. Gray markers come in a range of values: from 1 to black. You could get 1, 3 and 5, for example (my 5 is actually closer to a 7 on the gray scale). The nibs are fat and clumsy to use, which is the point. If yours come with markers at both ends, one fat, the other a sharp point, pretend the sharp one doesn’t exist. Then you’ll have to think and draw in simple masses and shapes, not details. You’ll definitely find it clumsy at first. Try it on bond paper, which bleeds a bit. You’re not trying to create a beautiful drawing; you’re using the markers to see if your composition can be reduced to three or four value masses, and to force yourself to render those masses simply."