[Dan]

Black paint is usually a very dark and neutral blue, which is why it shifts the yellow to green as its added.

[Dan]

you will always be influenced by the neighboring values, since value within a work can only be judged relative to the other values in the painting. They will always influence each other due to the fact that we only have those relationships to use to judge whether a value is “lighter or darker.”

One trick you can do to help identify values in a real life scenario is place a dash of pure black paint and a dash of pure white paint on your pallet near where you will be mixing. all values can be compared to those 2 colors, and you have effectively created a “bracket” of values (everything will be darker than the pure white, everything lighter than the pure black) and you can use that to then work your way up from the darkest value, by identifying the next darkest value, then the next step up, etc. You can also alter this bracket to help created different moods or keys in your paintings by deciding that, for example, a mid range value will be your darkest value.  You could mix that color at the start and place a dash of that color on your pallet, and throughout your painting compare your values to that original color, making sure that nothing in your painting exceeds that value in darkness.

[Author]

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