The Importance of Value

In art one has the freedom to arrange values. The placement and arrangement of these values depends on the desired outcome. Value creates contrast between objects and is able to create a theme. It also helps the staging of characters or scenes in general. Therefore experimentation with value should occur to find out the best possible solution in the creation of depth and atmosphere. 

Beneath are some examples of how value works and helps clarify the scene. The images are from the book "Dream Worlds". (Bacher, H. 2007. Dream Worlds: Production Design for Animation. Focal Press)

Images from "Dream Worlds"

Despite having a very simple composition and staging the value changes the mood in each version. Value is something that should be planned from the very beginning of a painting as it allows the painting to build onto the atmosphere and mood.  

Images from "Dream Worlds"

In the paragraph beneath Hans Bacher explains once more the importance of value and how it acts as a foundation for the colour, as guidance as one might say.

 

                       Images from "Dream Worlds"

How to Create Glowing Objects with Value

Dan dos Santos wrote a nice article on how to create a glowing effect through value. There are different methods to create such a glowing effect, for example one could use complementary colours for instance (see more under the post "Colour Theory"), but what if you have a different design in your head where the surrounding colours are similar to the colour that's supposed to glow?

In that case saturation can do the trick. Value and saturation control are a very important aspect in painting. Dan dos Santos describes his process here: http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.at/2012/10/not-so-bright.html

Image by Dan Dos Santos

"By placing the darkest values right in the pupils of the eye, I made the whites appear much whiter than they really are. Even at the drawing phase, the whites of the eyes already appear whiter than the board they are drawn on. This is obviously impossible (and in fact they are actually a little bit darker than the board), but our eyes perceive it otherwise. Go ahead, zoom in on the image above. You would swear the eyes are whiter than the rest of the image, but they are not." (Dan dos Santos 2012)

Image by Dan dos Santos

The trick is to paint all surrounding colours a bit darker and greyer than one usually would. The duller one paints things, the more the object, in this case the eyes, stand out.