Hello, and welcome back to my studio.
Have you heard the phrase, "your values have been blown out" in your painting?
What does that mean and how can we correct it?
In this video, I'm going to have a look at that concept of blown out values
and show you one of the very first paintings I did outdoors.
In fact, I think it's probably the first
plain air painting I did, and I had that on film as well.
And you're going to see the mistake I made in that painting.
One amongst many was misjudging the values
because I wasn't taking the sunlight properly into account.
It will all become clear as we get
into the video, but you'll learn a valuable lesson,
and hopefully you won't make the same mistake I did.
Let's have a look.
Okay, this was the scene I was painting, and quite a nice scene.
I was sitting out in the sunlight,
as you can see in the video that was taken of me painting.
Just sitting in the bright sunlight
with an overhead bright sun on my palette and on my painting.
And that was the mistake.
That bright light reflecting onto
my colors and painting surface made everything look
so bright that I completely misjudged the values of my colors.
Because the colors were the incorrect value, when I got back to my studio
and had a look at the painting, it looked like that.
Like a stormy day with this dark sky.
And that was the problem.
I was not taking into account that it was a bright, sunny day.
The sky colors should have been very bright and warm.
But I couldn't see that because my eyes were completely dominated by the bright
sunlight on my palette and painting surface.
Let's have a look at the reference
and my painting, and you can see the issues I'm talking
about, where the values in the sky were incorrectly assessed.
If we look at the value in the reference, let's just take this value scale and hold
it up there, and we're picking up number eight or number nine on the scale.
Hold it up to my painting, and completely too dark compared to the value scale.
I'm probably more in the region of middle value number five.
I'm almost heading into the shadow values.
Clearly out of touch.
If we have a look at that sky,
let's say in that area above the trees, midway up and paint that.
We'll just see that's the color, that light blue.
Let's try that on the painting.
Now that's what the sky value should have been.
Now that would have had a knock on effect onto everything else,
changing these colors over here to a much brighter, sunnier yellow.
And the painting would have looked like
a bright sunny summer scene instead of a somewhat overcast looking scene.
Now you can use a value scale like this.
You can also make yourself a color finder
like I've done here just with a bit of MDF, painting a white, a black,
and a mid-value gray, and you can compare values and assess
the values and see if the scene and your painting are corresponding.
If you're painting outdoors,
try to paint under shade, looking out onto the sunny scene in front
of you, or try to adjust your canvas so that the direct sunlight is not on it.
Another option, if there is no shade like a handy tree or
a side of a building you can stand against, you can always use an umbrella.
Now, there are umbrellas made for this purpose.
They can be attached to an easel, or perhaps you want to get a bigger
structure that you can stand under that's portable as well.
Just make sure that the cover you use
isn't going to reflect a color onto your canvas as well.
That will also make your perception of color incorrect.
So some type of neutral color that is not
going to influence your colors on your palette.
Same goes for your clothing as well.
A bright color on your clothing can reflect back onto your painting as well.
So make sure that's also a neutral color.
Now, a good tip as well is to stand further back.
Take breaks often, stand well back,
have a look at your painting and related to the landscape.
When you're standing further back,
you're not going to see that bright reflection right in your face,
and you'll be able to judge your values a little bit better and you can see your
painting is heading in the wrong direction and you've got to change those values.
Of course, it's not just the brights
that you can get wrong as well, but it's also the shadows.
They may look a lot lighter than they
really are, and of course, you're going to paint them incorrectly.
Finally, I think the best tip is,
of course, paint as often as you can outdoors and learn from your experience.
Come back to the studio and be very self-critical and figure out where you're
going wrong and then learn from that as well.
Well, I hope this has given you something
to think about as far as assessing values and getting it right in your colors.
Try that out. Paint outdoors and see how it goes.
If you found this tip useful, let me know in the comments.
And also don't forget to subscribe to this channel so you don't miss any more videos.
Until next time, enjoy your painting.
Cheers for now.