[Frost]

Everything is relative in an image... hue and value. I suppose practicing is the best way out of it. It's very hard to get values to look right, but it's probably the most important thing.

One should have a good understanding and some experience at dealing with the subtleties of hue, saturation and value. These three together as one form good results. If any of these three are out of whack, then you've lost the control over the image to give out the message you want to give out.

When creating an image, why not paint some reference color blobs on your canvas, and color-pick those colors/values as you need them in your image and use pressure sensitivity/opacity to give it subtle amounts more of that value or color?

Not sure what more to say... aside from practice and experiment with little subtlety in hue/sat/value...

=/

Good luck.
frost.

[GreenPeach]

for a long time common way of painting anything was to finish a very detailed image in black and white then put transparent layers of color on top. this way you can focus on simply value at first, without worrying about color. I dont suggest you make this your life work but it sure is easy to do in photoshop.

[nori]

am I the only one that seems to have trouble separating value from color? I can never seem to get close enough to the actual value. Anyone have any tips for separating these two?

[spooge demon]

This reads as a cube because the values are kinda in the right places. But if you identify which colors are where, you see that it is pretty random. An orange and a blue work together because they are the same value.

I hope this shows the separate natures of value and color? Hope it is clear�

This is a simple setup because of the relatively neutral light source, and simple flat white local colors of the surface and the cube. It can get more complex and difficult to control, but the idea is the same. There are also differences in evening and morning natural light in the outdoors, etc.

Another way to see value and color as separate is to just desaturate it (best is to convert to LAB and look at the brightness channel) and see if your forms read OK.

The older trick was a laser zerox.


[This message has been edited by spooge demon (edited April 15, 2001).]

[S4Sb]

Thanks. Damn, I missed to take part in that matte cube exercise so long ago.

Umm... Craig, is it right, that objects always have either warm light and cold shadows OR cold light and warm shadows?

[nori]

Great info. practice is good advice. when I'm at work or in school, I try to look at planes on objects and fit them into a value scale in my head.

s4sb: that's a question I had myself for spooge. It goes like this:

quote:

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hey craig, is there any way I could get you to speak for a few seconds about cool and warm light, and shadows?
If the light on an object is warm, will the shadow always be cool regardless of the object?

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reply:

quote:

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Nori, I was thinking about your question about color and shadows and light temperature. The secret is, if the drawing is correct and the values are correct, you can do just about anything you want. Remember that value makes the form read and color is an independent variable. You can go nuts if you want, and you should sometime, just to underscore the lesson in your mind.

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quote:

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That said, let me say that 95% of the work I see lives or dies on the strength of the drawing. It is hard work, but it will pay off. Drawing from life is the best way to learn it well. Drawing from photos makes you copy shapes, not internalize the forms and interpret them, which is the basis for a lot of naturalistic art. Draw from photos as a convenience, yes, but don't make a steady diet of it. Try not to let yourself fall into relying on the flat shapes you see in photos. You will cripple yourself. Photos are great for information about form.

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[This message has been edited by nori (edited April 15, 2001).]

[S4Sb]

Hmmm...ummm... thanks a lot so far. Well, a "yes"/"no, do it that way" would have helped me better . But as always the answer isn't that easy to find.

You all always talk about value. And I thought I know what it meant. Word by word translation in my language means something more mathematical. But I guess you mean the colourtones. Different levels of light and dark.

But, how do I know if the values are the same. Maybe I interpreted the word in a wrong way.

And:
When you draw from life, don't you see only shapes as well? not? Learning about values should be the same if you do it from photos, right? Or is drawing from life in that case the better way as well?

You know, it's a lot easier to play with colours on your computer. Not everybody has the time and the materials to draw outside on a canvas.

Don't know if I made myself clear here. The English I use here differs so very much from school english . Ask for clarification maybe.

Nori, can you put up the link to that thread here? There's probably additional info I could use

[Sumaleth]

A common approach in the game industry these days is to paint the textures/skins completely in grey scale, and then add color only once the grey version looks as good as it can be. Photoshop has some quite good painting modes for colorizing, so it's quite a good approach if you can do it like that (if you know Ken Scott's work on Q3A, he did them like that).

Row.

[spooge demon]

There aren’t any "warm light always have cool shadows" rules that are absolute. In a relative sense, two grays next to each other can be either warmer or cooler in relation to each other. It is important to remember that it is VERY relative.

I think that the human eye relates to a warmer light and cooler shadow the best because a warm sun and a cool diffuse sky by chance exaggerate this system. In a lab, the warm/cool difference is perceptual, and not nearly as strong. You can break it any time you want and not have it interfere with the forms reading well.

Value- how light or dark it is.
Hue, color- the red, green, blue component
Saturation- how intense a hue is

They are independent variables. Play around with Photoshop’s HSB sliders; you will get the hang of it.

For instance, there is no such thing as brown. It is really a dark red. Earth tones are just dark yellows and reds.

I have always been a little to analytical, and I think that you can break down problems in painting into different areas. Drawing, values, color, in that order. Get each right. They can overlap, ex. If a value is wrong on a receding cheek, the cheek structure looks wrong. Is it a value or drawing problem? Well, both. In the same way, make a gray scale of your image and see if the values are reading OK.

Many people tell me their painting needs zip or life, but these things come from solid basics.

The exercise I was alluding to a while back was from my color theory with Judith Crook. She devised a neat exercise where you take photos of the same place (a complex space with a good variety of textures and materials- architecture is good) in direct morning and evening light. You then paint them, but try to exaggerate the differences between the two lighting conditions. It is a great exercise, feel free to try.

The photo question is such a popular one. I have talked about it a lot, but I will paraphrase again.

Photos cannot be a substitute for life drawing and painting. Remember when you went behind the old barn as a kid to blow up some spray paint cans in a bonfire? You told you mom you were, um, going to help ladies cross the street. How did she know you were not being straight with her?

Likewise with experienced artists. Paintings done from photos where the artist has limited experience in painting from life scream this from 1000 miles away. But the artist thinks he had the blinds pulled that day. How do they know? Everyone knows. And it is not bad- IT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU DO WITH IT. Is it a literal and dumb transcription of the limitations of film stock? Or is it the basis for something further? That is up to the individual to decide what it is, and what value it has. And being able to go further is provided by working from life.

But sooner or later, if you do art long enough, you will grow very bored and restless with the photo stuff. What more is there? When you are starting and wrestling with controlling the medium, you think if you can get it to look like that photo, you have succeeded. Well, you have! I did this when I was first learning (don’t tell synj). But art is a lot more than that, and when you draw from life and let the photos go, you will see a lot more possibilities in art. You will never be bored again.

Another thing I have said and people don’t believe me is a beginning artist and an experienced one can trace a photo and the experienced artists will look much better. GETTING AN ACCURATE OUTLINE IS A SMALL PART OF GOOD DRAWING. Sorry for the screaming. You must see the form and express it after internalizing it. If you are not standing in front of an object, you cannot perceive its form. Photos are flat. They have their place, esp. to an illustrator, but be careful of using them INSTEAD of a lot of life drawing.

I think the old way of drawing from plaster cast at first is a great way to start, then to the model. Then, after a long while, you will be able to look at photos and pull info out of them without being a slave to the flat shapes.

And colors and exposure latitude. Here is a photo and a sketch done on location. The photo did not see what I saw. I will use the photo for drawing and shapes perhaps, but I am glad I was there to get what the camera could not.

[S4Sb]

Thanks so much! That will help a lot! It already helped a lot.

Thank thee

[surferboi]

I think I learned a lot from this thread. I wanna thank Spooge for explaining such a complex subject in understandable examples and illustrations.
anyway i took a shot, my first time trying to do a cube thing.


what i think i had a problem with is when id try smoothing out or blending the diffrent colors together it would adjust the brightness making it slightly darker. If anyone could help me along id love the help.