#tonal values

This is the princess, isn't she beautiful?

I've been trying to paint more. Figure out tonal values.

block out rough tone value changes in greyscale ( as draw the rough shape of where the the tone changes) and use your smudge tool to blend the tones together as necessary. This should give you the right tone values with just enough transparency that you can colour block on the layer behind and faff about with layering colours to add variation and light as necessary

example:

504) Watercolor Tonalist Painting: Exploring Single Colors: Light Oxide ...

The role tonal values in the art are often not realized and they are usually tricky to perceive and practice. A tonal value is a change or alteration between the light and dark in a painting or reference which creates a perception of a three-dimensional figure on the paper, or realism; our brains do not usually perceive such transitions, instead, we focus on colours and give them more importance in art.

What is a “tone” or “tonal value”?

Tone or tonal value determines how dark or how light the object is, and they do not change with the light, which is contrary to what our eyes perceive. That is why during the artist’s training, they are taught to understand that optical illusions are not illusions; in fact, they are the true impressions on the retina.

To create realistic paintings or pencil portraits, you need to work on the tonal values of your art.

Separate light and shadow

Begin with marking a distinction between the “lights” and “shadows” in your painting. The “light” colours would include all areas whom the light touches directly, while the “shadow” colours would include the rest of the areas that are hidden by the light source, like all shadows and reflected light areas.

Look at your subject from the direction of the light, so you would understand where the light is touching it directly, making that area a “light” area.

Use a value scale

Every colour has an underlying value between white and black which can be infinite, but for simplicity, all the colours of a painting can be placed on a scale of 1 to 9 or 10.

Using a value scale is highly recommended for the artists as it will help you understand tonal relationships and distinguish the colours too. You can create a value scale by yourself too.

Consider relative values

Generally, we perceive anything as “dark” or “light” concerning the surrounding objects. This can really affect our judgments of the tonal values or the colours while drawing from observation.

Explore light effects

As light hits an object directly, there are many areas where it doesn’t reach wholly and many areas where it doesn’t reach at all. This is how light spills over an object and creates areas of light and shade and reflection of light- many such effects need to be explored.

Capture reflected light

To create a realistic sense of light, it’s important to capture the indirect or reflected light in the right intensity. Two factors affect the light: The first is the local value which is the ‘actual’ brightness of an object; you might know that lighter materials reflect light more strongly than darker materials. Next is the distance, as the light gets weaker as it travels long distances.

Light striking a geometric solid such as a woman's face or sphere creates orderly and predictable series of light & dark tones. Learning to identify their tones and to place them in their proper relationship is one of the keys to achieving a look of solidity. The video below is an experiment of classic tonal steps from light to shadow, known as modelling factors.

"Tonal values are critical. The lights and darks contribute more to the success of a painting's composition than any other factor, including colour. In fact, your painting will really only be as good as the tonal values" 

- Greg Albert, The simple Secret to Better Painting.

Task 1; Drawing & Painting Workshop. “Your homework for this week is to take a photograph of a simple object, a chair, table, box, building, something with clear divisions of tonal values. Export into Photoshop and turn it greyscale.”

From the mannequin photograph, I tried to define each tonal values in my own style. The lines helped bring out the dark values and created a perfect reference. Decided to use a combination of pen and pencil to bring out the subject inside Photoshop.

My personal experience is that blue pencils, or Col-Erase pencils of most colours, allows you to work very loosely and create dynamic rough poses. By adjusting colour channels in Photoshop, you can easily get rid of the original sketchiness (done in blue or red) leaving them with only the cleaned-up black lines of the illustration.