Value: Value is one of those elements that are thrown around a lot in critiques. You may hear
art teachers or artist mentors go: "oh, watch your values" or "pump up your values" or something along
those lines. And I guess unless you already know what values are, you're probably sitting there
wondering how you can sell your artwork for more money or something. Don't worry we don't need to track
any stock markets, we just need to pay attention to how light and dark your colours are. Let's continue!
According to our friend Google, value defines how light or dark a given colour or hue can be. Values
are best understood when visualized as a scale or gradient, from dark to light. The more tonal
variants in an image, the lower the contrast. When shades of similar value are used together, they
also create a low contrast image. Let me summarize all that in a couple of easier to understand
sentences. Value which can also be called tone in short, is just how light and dark the colours
of a piece are. Let's put the color red on a value scale for a minute. When the red gets lighter, this
means that they have lighter values. All lighter colours are considered to have a lighter value, the
tint white being the lightest value you can have. When the red gets darker, this means it has darker
values. All darker colors are considered to have a darker value, the shade black being the darkest
value you can have. Value usually goes hand in hand with the principle of design, contrast. So let's
talk about how they work together. The majority of the time when creating a piece, you want to have a
wide range of values so that there's a center of focus, and that different objects within a scene
are distinguishable from one another. This means that you'll want your values to have high contrast.
When something has a high contrast, it usually has values that range all the way from high to low.
Let's take a look at a piece that most of you are probably already familiar with, The Girl
with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer. It's a little tough to see the values properly, so let's
convert this piece to black and white. There we are! Now it's easy to see that range -- with a
black background and a fair-skinned individual, the contrast is very apparent in this piece.
She practically pops off the canvas since she's made up of only mid to high values, and
she's surrounded by the void. You can also take a look at this piece, Portrait of Melissa Thompson
by Kehinde Wiley. Wiley's piece has the same value as Vermeer's, but this time it's an individual made
up of darker values surrounded by mid to light values, making them pop off the canvas just as much.
While high contrast is generally desirable, I'd personally argue that it's not necessary.
"Oh Jessie, is this another one of your modern artist takes like the eyestrain one from the colour video?"
Actually, no. But before I get to that, let's move on to low contrast. Low contrast is pretty well just
the opposite of high contrast. Low contrast pieces either have a similar range of values or they just
have such a wide variety that there's no room for contrast anymore. With most pieces, low contrast is
avoided since it can be difficult to distinguish forms from one another. If you want a tip, actually
looking at the piece and squinting at it is a good way to see whether it's easy to distinguish forms
or not. If it's hard to tell what it is when it's blurry, then you may want to either raise or lower
the value of whatever section you're looking at. However, like I mentioned a few seconds ago,
high contrast isn't always necessary. I'm going to introduce this next piece to you already in black
and white, just so it gets my point across a little better. This is Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet,
painted in 1872. When just looking at the values, you can barely tell what's going on in this piece.
If you've already seen it before then you already know, but would you believe me if
I said there was actually a sunset on a cloudy harbor in the background?
That's because with a ton of Monet's paintings, he didn't rely on value to distinguish his forms,
he relied on colour. Artists nowadays can avoid the low contrast dilemma as well with line art --
a low contrast palette can easily be solved with a distinguished line art that practically cuts
out all the pieces for you, whether the line art is dark or light. Digital artists also have the
option of certain filters and functions that can show the accurate values of their color choices.
Contrast within values can also be used to create something called atmospheric perspective or aerial
perspective. If you've ever been somewhere high up, or looked out onto a mountain range
or cityscape, you may notice that things in the distance seem to begin to disappear. This is
atmospheric perspective -- the effect the atmosphere has on objects as they go further away into the
distance. As they go further away, the values get lighter. Artists use this effect to show parts of
a landscape growing further into the distance, but it's also a technique favoured by character
artists to either emphasize foreshortening or to show the distance between limbs or certain parts
of a character. But value isn't just all about contrast, value is part of what adds to the mood
of a piece. If you remember in the colour video on this channel, I mentioned that the mood of a
piece's palette is usually determined by the colour scheme, saturation, and value. Usually pieces with
higher saturation and lighter values tend to be happier or more lighthearted, whereas pieces with
lower saturation and darker moods tend to be sad or mysterious or moody. For instance, let's
take a look at the cover art from the game Rime versus a screenshot from the game Hollow Knight.
Both of these screenshots have predominantly blue color schemes and like, yeah I used blue in
the colour video too, but it's a really versatile colour (and also my favorite one). But comparing the
two, you get two completely different feelings. While Rime feels very soothing, and somewhat
peaceful, Hollow Knight feels eerie, and a little sad. Looking at the values of each game, Hollow
Knight uses far deeper tones, while Rime sticks with lighter tones with lower contrast, relying
more on colour to distinguish different sections just like Monet did. But again, while this can apply to
most pieces, it isn't necessarily true 100% of the time. Let's look at one more screenshot from Hollow
Knight, which still uses predominantly low values but this mood feels different, doesn't it? Now it
all feels calming and atmospheric. In this case, it has to do with the difference in subject matter.
A bench next to a light post in a lush forest, versus a well in a dusty and abandoned-looking
area. But this shows that all elements of art work together in order for a piece to be successful.
Value isn't a very complex element, but it has such a wide range of possibilities in art because of
its very flexible rules. Understanding and making sure that your values have purpose is what's most
important. And once you have that down, you're bound to create some stunning works of art! For your next
piece, experiment with different kinds of values. Create a piece that's super high contrast, and then
create another that's pretty low contrast. Maybe you want to try darker values, or you can play with
lighter values and come up with different moods you can set based on those values you chose, and
the colors within those values. If you're a teacher, we have worksheets on the topic which you can find
on our website, along with other art resources for your classroom -- link down below. If you liked
what you saw, be sure to leave a like on this video, comment down below to let us know what you'd like
to see us do next, and hit subscribe so you never miss an upload. Join our little art community with
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If you enjoyed this video, here's a couple other videos you can check out next.