How do you meassure value/color ?

[Allan Rahbek]

Originally Posted by Marcus Lim

This got me thinking - didn't i remember one of our Forum member sharing a tip, to use a grey paper underneath a glass sheet and it makes a great palette?

Hi Marcus,

You are right that Carder's tool is a combination of many other in use, for instance using the palette knife to hold up with the mix to compare colors.

I use a glass palette with a middle value color underneath it and I also had a gray scale underneath for a while. Now I find it a great help to know if I am in the lighter or darker side by comparing with the middle value of the palette.

Using any method of measuring values is especially helpfull in the beginning of the painting process. Later on is it easy to compare to the already established values.

My question was not only meant to be about Carder's tool but any effective measuring "trick". Speak up folks

Ps. I made a small still life using Carder's tool, and took the measurements litterally, I was surprised how wide the value scale had to be.
I can't post it here because it's not portrait.

[Debra Norton]

I use the black mirror a lot. I know that judging values has always been a weak spot for me, so I'm extra careful about it. I make my own black mirrors by having gray glass cut for me and then put black contact paper on one side. These don't get scratched up like plexiglass will, plus they won't be wavy like I've seen with some plexiglass or plastic when I was in school. They're breakable, but I've only broken one in the six years I've been using them.

At least once in a painting I will take a photo of what I'm painting together with the painting and convert it to black and white to see if anything pops out at me.

When I was in school somebody came up with some little transparent colored plastic "thingys" to look through that were made for use in designing quilts. They came in red and green, similar to what Amanda described. We bought them at a quilt shop. You can't judge color by them, but one thing nice about them compared to a black mirror was that you could see the images more clearly, especially if it was a dark day.

I also discovered Carder's website a while back and made my own version of his tool. I cut a piece of acetate 1" x 4" and drew a square on one end with a Sharpie (so it doesn't disappear when I lay it on my painting cart). I put paint on this then hold it up to my set up or photo to check color and value.

Sometimes I just hold the loaded paint brush in front of the object and squint to see how it looks.

I have a very small studio right now so occasionally I take my painting out to another room where I can get farther (further?) away from it and get a different look. I also turn them upside down, or sideways, just to see if something pops out at me. Our brains get so used to seeing the painting that it thinks what it sees is "right." So I try to fool mine once in a while by doing things like this. I also tend to turn my paintings to the wall or leave them upside down on my easel when I'm not working on them. That way I have a fresh eye when I go back to them.

[Marvin Mattelson]

I don't know what the point is to learning tricks. It can create a crutch. I think the point is to find the best way to train ones eyes to see color values accurately.

I find that premixing my paint values on my palette, gives me consistent points of reference to relate to, so that the estimating of values in the scene before me becomes more logical and far less hit or miss. More often than not, the range of values that the eye perceives will exceed the value range available in paint. Merely coping what's in front of you makes it impossible to capture the essence of the value relationships in nature.

[Marcus Lim]

Originally Posted by Marvin Mattelson

I don't know what the point is to learning tricks. It can create a crutch. I think the point is to find the best way to train ones eyes to see color values accurately.

I agree with Marvin. What makes an artist great, is his/her years' of committment to making great paintings, without the use of 'crutches'.

[Allan Rahbek]

Originally Posted by Marvin Mattelson

I don't know what the point is to learning tricks.

Thank you, Marvin,
so yours is the string system........

I also find that strings are helpful, I have tubed a string of gray values and also Indian and Venetian reds. I find it vere useful to have them ready on the palette when doing a portrait.

Can you tell me what you think when you look for value, do you compare to the neighbouring value or to a key value somewhere?

I have read that Peter Christian Skovgaard (1817-1875) , a midt 1800 danish painter, used a 12 value premixed palette for landscapes. I was in the "Golden Age" of Danish painting and all of the painters used very convincing values.
Many of the paintings were made in Italy., the place to go at that time.

I am not so sure that this Carder is cheating, because he actually compare by eye. He uses his little thing to help focus on the target. He also say that he is not using it much anymore.

I don't actually mean tricks, that's why I wrote "tricks".


Debra,

You'r right, the hard thing is to look at a painting with fresh eyes.

[Steven Sweeney]

The first radio-controlled airplane I owned was a trainer with an onboard electronic system that, if it sensed that the airplane was beginning to head into trouble

[Virgil Elliott]

Originally Posted by Marvin Mattelson

I don't know what the point is to learning tricks. It can create a crutch. I think the point is to find the best way to train ones eyes to see color values accurately.

Marvin is right. The way to develop a good eye and judgment is to rely on your eye and judgment, not some device.

Setting aside for the moment the limitations of paint versus light in Nature, which makes creating the illusion of reality a more complicated matter than merely matching the colors we see at the values they actually are, suppose we're using one of these devices, and it tells us what color things are. After we know what color is there, how do we determine whether that's the best color to paint it in order to make the best possible work of art?

Virgil Elliott

[Allan Rahbek]

Virgil,

I was actually hoping that we could explore the possibility of how to understand the relativity between the limited paint values versus the wider scale of natural light.

I have often wondered why some painters are better to express light while others never manage to. The answer, it seems, is primarily in the value range.

So, if I see a value on an indoor motif and choose to use it on the painting, would I not simply mix the value/colour in question and compare it to the motif before I use it?

Would it make any difference if I compare it by eye on the palette, hold up the brush or painting knife or hold up any other device with a sample of the mixture, as long as the paint sample is seen in the same light?

When the motif is seen outdoors and the painter is also outdoors in the usually stronger light, the relative difference between paint and daylight values must be the same as indoors, I guess, and the possibility to compare directly between the motif and the paint sample is also the same.

I don

[Virgil Elliott]

[QUOTE=Allan Rahbek]Virgil,

I was actually hoping that we could explore the possibility of how to understand the relativity between the limited paint values versus the wider scale of natural light.

I have often wondered why some painters are better to express light while others never manage to. The answer, it seems, is primarily in the value range.

So, if I see a value on an indoor motif and choose to use it on the painting, would I not simply mix the value/colour in question and compare it to the motif before I use it?

Would it make any difference if I compare it by eye on the palette, hold up the brush or painting knife or hold up any other device with a sample of the mixture, as long as the paint sample is seen in the same light?

When the motif is seen outdoors and the painter is also outdoors in the usually stronger light, the relative difference between paint and daylight values must be the same as indoors, I guess, and the possibility to compare directly between the motif and the paint sample is also the same.

I don