Tools for Finding Values

One of the skills that separates good artists from great artists is the ability for the artist to see and render values. It's more important to get the values down than it is to get the correct colors. You have to train your eye to recognize different value if you want to have any hope of moving your artwork forward.

There are a couple of tools you can use to help you recognize values and break down your images into distingquishable darks and lights. There is the value finder, black mirror or the Claude Glass as it formally referred to as and you can also buy or make a colored viewer out of red or green plastic.

1. Value Finder - this is the most helpful tool for learning to see and render values. It's a hand-held tool with 10 colored squares on it with either a notch or a hole in each of the 10 colored squares. One of the squares is colored white which is on the far end of the card and black on the other end of the card and in between there are 8 squares that start with light gray and slowly increase in darkness up to an almost black gray. You can use this tool by holding up to a still life or photo and by peering through the hole or the notch you can compare it to the various value squares until the color and the value square are almost indistinguishable in the value.

You can make you own by painting 10 squares ranging from white on one end and slowly darkening the white and painting 8 squares in between, each getting darker, and painting pure black in the last square.

2. Black Mirror or Claude Glass - this tool is good for limiting the middle values so you can see the major value shapes. You can view a still life or photo as light and dark and limited middle values. This is just a black piece of glass you look at your image in. You can purchase these or make your own. The real Claude Glass is slightly concave but you can make your own with just a flat piece of glass.

You can make your own by painting the back of a piece of glass and covering the edges with masking or electric tape to prevent cuts.

3. Colored Viewer - this is anther tool you can use to limit the values of an object by limiting the number of values you see. This is a bit easier to use than the black mirror because you can value your subject through the red or green plastic. You can purchase there or make your own.

You can make your own by purchasing some red or green cellophane or a plastice red file folder and using as is or tape it to a pre-cut picture matt or cut your own frame for it and taping the plastic to it.