Tonal Values - Progressing from Light to Dark (Patreon)

I’ve been asked a few times lately why I layer the paint to get the depth of colour that I want rather than applying one layer at the desired darkness.

That’s a great question and I’ll attempt to answer it here.

Tonal values are the darkness and lightness of a colour or more clearly they are pigment concentrations. A darker or stronger tone in watercolour has more pigment and a weaker or lighter tone has less pigment and more water. Indicating the tonal values in your paintings is crucial to the success of your painting. Tonal values in your paintings is the most important element you can use to create depth and dimension. They are more important to the success of your painting than the actual colours or hues that you use.

The question is: ‘Why don’t you paint the dark areas once with lots of pigment instead of painting them over and over with lots of layers?’

When we paint in watercolour it’s best to paint the lightest tonal values first and gradually get darker. You’ll hear me say in a lot of my tutorials that ‘I like to sneak up on my darks’ and ‘I know I can go darker by painting another layer but if I go too dark too quickly then I have nowhere to go.’ I always start light in tonal value and then I slowly build the tonal value up while I leave some areas of those first lighter washes showing in the lightest areas of the painting.

I don’t know how dark I want a particular shape to be until I’m almost at the end of my painting when I can start to compare all of my tonal values on the painting. I ask myself, ‘Does this area here need to be darker than this area beside it?’ If I decide it does need to be darker I’ll give it another layer or two of the colour that I was using or maybe that colour isn’t dark enough. Maybe I need to choose a colour that has a larger tonal range than that first colour I was using. For example, if I was painting a brown subject and I was using Brown Ochre. If I put Brown Ochre on the paper at its full intensity it may not be dark enough for my needs. I may need to paint over some areas where I had Brown Ochre with Van Dyke Brown or Sepia to get it as dark as I think I need it.

Sometimes I think I’ve got an area dark enough but then when it’s dry I can see that it isn’t so then I have to give it another layer. All the way through the painting I’m comparing one tonal value with another and its important to start light so that I can compare those darker tones with my lightest tones.

Another reason to not paint the darks too early is if you put dark colour on your paper in the early stages of your painting you risk disturbing the colour because dark colours lift more easily than light colours. So it’s best not to jump from light tonal values to dark tonal values too quickly. Build your tonal values slowly. Keep them for the final stages of the painting so you don’t disturb them by painting over them and you will see your painting transform from ordinary to spectacular when you add them in.

I hope this helps to answer the question.

Louise

🤎

PS: I’m currently working on a tutorial of this old pickup truck for you. Diane Morin kindly gave me permission to paint from her photo. I’ll be posting the tutorial on Patreon next month.