Feedback on Value Studies

[Carlos Perez]

Hey guys I’ve been taking Bill Perikin´s course on color. I started with the value studies, where the exercise is to paint a female oil  portrait for 30 mts. in different light conditions and different value arrangements, (not an and chiaroscuro).

Those are some of the ones that went well, of course, many others were  “fails” however i wanted to share with you , any feedback and comments are welcomed thanks ::)

[Jack]

Hello Carlos, looks like a fantastic exercise to go through. Out of curiosity, which sketches do you feel were successful and which not-so-successful, and why? I ask because I don’t recall Perkin’s exercise and what, exactly, the intended lesson is. I assume it’s about depicting a subject in high/low major/minor keys?

You might be interested in supplementing what you’ve learned with Todorovitch’s chapter on portrait painting in b/w -> https://www.nma.art/videolessons/the-grisaille-greyscale-oil-portrait/?course=640269

Mirochnik also has a section on drawing the asaro head, which I think would be useful as it’s all about depicting the planes of the head in different values-> https://www.nma.art/videolessons/russian-drawing-course-part-7-planes-of-the-head-project/?course=108694

I’ve got three pieces of feedback, take what you will of them!

• My initial impression (not exactly knowing the intention of the exercise) is to more clearly delineate the planes of the head using value. It might be worth doing a few heads in an almost sculptural fashion, simplifying the head into its planes and respective values. In quite a few of your sketches, it’s hard to detect these plane shifts from front to side.
• A second, almost opposite, suggestion is to try is using middle-values to reduce the contrast between specific value changes as to produce an effect similar to a soft edge. I don’t mean blending, but a block of transitional value. Incorporate this into the design of your portraits to direct the viewer’s attention by heightening/lowering contrast.
• Thirdly, let your values “fall off” from the source of the light. For instance, the “light frontal” plane might darken from forehead, to nose, to chin, to neck. They’re all in the light family and front-facing, but you intentionally design the value changes in a sort of hierarchy.

You’re going to have to forgive me for such a butchering of one of your paintings, but I threw it into an MS Paint-like program to show you what I mean by these suggestions. You’ll have to look past the crudity of it, I haven’t touched digital art (obviously):)

If you wanted to do a similar exercise but have a “low key” painting, you simply compress the light values into a lower range – the hierarchy remains the same, but the range decreases. And vice verse for a high key painting.

 

Jac

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Jack.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Jack.

[Carlos Perez]

Hey Jac , thanks for your generous feedback

The intention was to look at the value relationships and to paint in different light conditions.   “Flat”   Black/white relationships and “Chiaroscuro”  Light /dark relationships all timeboxed in    30 mts.

These ones are the good ones I have other paintings where I couldn’t even create a reasonable portrait idea, I’ll upload them for the next feedback.

For some reason, I only can see one feedback image although I got the ideas, planes, Asaro heads, and  More transition values.

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