Value Scale & Color Wheel

1. Discuss what you thought about creating the Value Scale and Color Wheel.

I used to teach an Adult Education 'Beginning Watercolor' class. The first thing we would do is create a value study, and then next, several color wheels using different variations of primaries. For instance, they would create a color wheel using warm pigment tones and cool pigment tones. This helped lay a foundation for the students to start to think in terms of different values in their paintings, from light to dark. By experimenting with the color wheels, they became less intimidated by the vast array of colored watercolor tubes in front of them. In the picture below, I created a charcoal value study as well as a watercolor value study (using Winsor & Newtons's 'Payne's Gray'). In the watercolor study seen in the middle, I have punched a hole in the center of each value, thus creating a 'window' that you can hold against a painting to see which value it is. To create dynamic, interesting, artwork it is important to understand how to use values and colors to your best advantage.

2. Which media did you enjoy working with the best and why?

I enjoyed working with the Golden-brand acrylic paint the best since I love working with color. I often work in Adobe Photoshop or InDesign, so I understood CMYK as the four colors used in printing, but I was not aware that RED, YELLOW and BLUE were "historic" or "pre-scientific" primary colors. It was fascinating to combine my Cyan, Magenta and Yellow primary-colored acrylics and achieve Black!

3. What was the most important discovery in the creation of these studies?

In the creation of these studies, I found that it is possible to mix primary colors and achieve black rather than a muddy brown. From an early age we learn that the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue; I now realize that this is not entirely true, you actually need to use magenta as your 'red' and 'cyan' as your blue, but in both the historic and the modern color wheel you use yellow. While this, to me, is the most important discovery in the creation of these studies, whenever I struggle in my own paintings I find that by looking at it in a black and white photograph I can easily pinpoint where I need to add or subtract lights and darks. If my work only contains one value, regardless of how beautiful the colors are it will not be as successful as it would be if I were to emphasize values from the lightest- lights to the darkest-darks.

4. What is the most important information you learned from watching the videos for this project? What is your opinion of the videos?

The videos were short and informative. If you had never created value studies or color wheels, these quick tutorials are important to watch. While the information seems simplistic, it is imperative that every artist understand the basic principles learned from creating value studies and color wheels. They are a sturdy foundation on which to begin your study as an artist.

http://i1347.photobucket.com/albums/p712/ADTasevski/Value%20Studies%20and%20Color%20Wheel/Value%20Studies%20%20Color%20Wheel_zpscuh12hod.jpg