Wanderlust Collective

TRAVEL INSPIRATION ARTFAQ CLASSES

Using Value Contrast In Your Drawings

Apr 20/ by The Wanderlust Collective /Art Class, Artist Spotlight, Inspiration

History

There are 7 elements of art. These are color, form, line, shape, space, texture, and value.

Value is how dark or light a hue or color is. The point of visual art is the need to express an emotion, expression, idea or belief. If you want to get the attention of the viewer we need to use these elements in our artwork.

Introduction

Today we are concentrating on value contrast. Value contrast means the amount of contrast between two areas of different values. There is high contrast, which is a big difference between dark and light, or low contrast, not such a big difference in light or dark. Photographers use this when trying to bring more interest to their subjects. Notice in their still life photos how there is dramatic contrast making the story, subject, and etc. pop.

Let’s take a look at this picture done by Photo by Nicolas Ladino Silva on Unsplash. You can see that it is a high contrast photograph. It has really strong contrasting elements. In this picture there is hardly any gray tones, just very strong blacks and whites. You can see that the photographer is telling a story. Striking picture isn’t it?

In this photograph of a mural of Frida Kahlo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash you see that there is high contrast. The colors are very bright and there is a-lot of contrast going on. This makes for an interesting piece of art.

“Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.”

Frida Kahlo

I love this photo by Frida Bredesen on Unsplash of the zebra. This is also considered a value contrast photo. You can see the amount of value contrast between the zebra stripes.

Here is a drawing I did a few years ago. I took value contrast into account. The different ways artists create textures and lines also affect how we see value. Notice how heavy the darks are in this graphite drawing. I played with values in order to add more drama to this piece.

"Where Do We Go From Here?"

You can go take a black and white picture for reference. Make sure you are aware of the lighting situation. Use the reference, and either draw or paint the subject. I can’t wait to see what you come up with. If you liked this post leave a comment, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out on future blogs.

Happy Painting!