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"American Interior"
6" x 6" |
One of the most difficult things for me when painting, is getting the values right. While I was working on this painting today, I just couldn't seem to get the glow on the window's mullions, nor was I achieving the overall drama that I wanted. So I took a photo of my painting, desaturated it in Photoshop (turning it into a black and white image) then compared it to a black and white image of the real photo. Wow! I was sooo off. It's hard to remember sometimes, that in order to create "popping" whites, you have to have the dark contrasts. Because I have a tendency to overwork my paintings, I'm often gun-shy when it comes to pushing the values and achieving those darkest darks. But as long as I remember to use a full range of values, creating the contrast I need, I'll be able to obtain those glowing whites. And the black and white image "trick" is VERY helpful as I have a very difficult time seeing the value in color. I still have some work to do before I can call this painting done, but I feel much better that I'm headed in the right direction.
Below you'll see my before and after value images, along with the original photo. Happy painting!
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(the "before" value image -- notice that the wall
and the outside values are all wrong) |
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| the actual photo's value image |
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(the "after" value image -- this is from the color
painting image at the beginning of this post) |
