Transcription
Right now, what I want you guys to practice is look at an image and then be able to just squeeze those values down to two or three. A two-value drawing is known as a no-tan drawing. That's also what my wife calls me, no-tan Stan. So if you're using just two values, you really just have your lights and your darks. And obviously, in reality, we look out there, we're seeing way more than two values but you have to choose that threshold of like anything lighter than this threshold is thrown into the lights, anything darker gets thrown into the darks. And where that threshold is, it's kind of up to you. I mean, it should be somewhere in the middle but it's up to you and it's based on your perception, your feeling when you look at the image.
If you're doing three values, now you have an additional value to help you out. This could actually be easier. You have your lights, you have your shadows and now you have your mid value. And what that mid value could be is a container for all of those ambiguous values where if you're doing a two value drawing, not really sure whether you should put this in the lights or in the darks. Just could kind of go either way. So, those values you just put into the mids. That one additional value is like 50% more information, right? I mean, in a way, there is now two borders, those two thresholds. At what point is it a light or a mid and at what point is it a mid or a dark, right? So, now you have those two decisions but in a way, it is still a little bit easier to do three rather than two because you have to do less simplifying, less problem solving.
In the downloads, you're going to find several images of master paintings and your assignment is to do thumbnail studies of these paintings focusing on the values. Your goal is to study how these masters are organizing their major value groups. Use the images I provided, but also if you have a master that you want to study, feel free to do those as well. Just remember that some paintings are going to be kind of difficult to break into just two values. I mean, it's always possible. Any image can be simplified to two values. You could simplify any image to one value, just go it's all white or it's all black but some images are just gonna have a very clear middle value where the master kind of has already kind of a major three value composition and you're just gonna be forced to throw that major part of the composition into a lighter or dark and that might just make it look worse because their decisions are all based on the three. So, my whole point is that with some paintings, that third value might be very handy.
And by the way, a thumbnail is just a smaller drawing. It could range from being one inch or, you know, five to six inches. And really, I mean, the thumbnail, if you're usually doing paintings that are like the size of a wall, then even like a sketchbook size could be considered a thumbnail. But most of us aren't doing wall-sized paintings. Most of us are drawing this size. To most of us, a typical thumbnail is going to be just a few inches and the purpose of making them smaller is to force us to avoid details. We don't have room to put details, it's just too tiny and so we're forced to think about just the major shapes. And if you're familiar with Charles Bargh, he has a wonderful book and it takes you through the process of shading, rendering light on form. And in his initial stages, he has this notan drawing where he breaks it down into just two values and he removes all the details. And so, it's very similar to what we're doing here. The difference though is he's not doing thumbnail studies. In his, they're preparations for longer drawings, but he's still simplifying the two values and removing details. So, these images still serve as great inspiration for this project.
Level two, you're doing the same thing, simplifying your drawings to two to three values, you're doing thumbnails, but two things to make it a little more challenging for you. One, you have to set up your own still life, compose it, light it, take a picture of it and then do value studies off that. So, that is much more difficult than it maybe sound well, no, it sounds pretty hard too. But it doesn't have to be complicated. You could literally just put some fruits in a basket, put a light on it, take a photo. You really just want to make sure you have large forms, you have clear lighting on there so you could do a value study. You can go online, look for inspiration, how to set up a still life, what things to put in a still life. Just look for something that interests you so that you could be excited about doing these studies.
And the second thing that makes it more difficult is that you're working from photos. You're not working from master paintings anymore. In a painting done by a master, a lot of that problem solving has been done. They usually filter out a lot of junk from what they're seeing and they're designing their shapes to look good. But when you look at a photograph, you're seeing everything. You're seeing the raw stuff, all the details, all the noise and you have to do all that filtering. You have to filter the entire process. You're working from a master painting, a lot of the filtering has been done and now you're just filtering it even more just to two or three values. Your inclination is going to be to put all those little details you see in the photo. But fight that urge, focus on big massive groups of shapes. And simplify them to two or three. That's the assignment. The assignment is not to get beautiful drawings. Remember that a lot of what we're doing this course is to help you improve specific things, make you get better at very specific skills so that then when you go to work on your beautiful drawings, you have those skills and they all come together to help you make beautiful drawings.
By the way, I made a little value study tool over at proko.com/values. It's like the gradient map layer in Photoshop, but with some additional features. So several of you mentioned that you don't have Photoshop, so this should be very useful. You just load in a painting and add some value steps in this gradient bar. The histogram up here shows you how much of each value is in your image, which can sometimes help you identify the major value groups. You can also adjust the number of steps with this slider and then click distribute if you want them to be evenly distributed. The simplicity slider simplifies the shapes and removes details and then down here you could see the value distribution and a little indicator below that telling you if your image is high key, mid key or low key. Oh, and then there are two view options that you can toggle between. If you're in the single image view, you can click and hold the image to switch between the original and the value study. All right, go check it out. I hope you find it useful.
If you made it this far, you're probably really serious about learning how to draw. There's a lot more coming if you get the premium version. We're going to learn about organizing values with value keys and value ranges for better composition and go deep into light on form. I'll give you exercises and projects to help you practice and I'll do a bunch of demonstrations and critique videos to guide you along the way. This course already has over a hundred lessons about line, shape, perspective. The remainder of this course is all about shading. I hope to see you in the premium section. That's over at proko.com/drawing.