Chroma Trumps Value

This month in the Values I class we have concerned ourselves with being able to recognize values in the landscape accurately as well as to understand concepts like Carlson’s Theory of Angles and atmospheric perspective. We often perceive value in Nature inaccurately. For example, warm colors are often judged to be lighter than they actually are. Cool colors, on the other hand, will often be perceived as darker. So, we learn to recognize those tendencies and challenge our visual assumptions.

Another good example of our perception vs. reality occurs with the color attribute of chroma or intensity of a color. One piece of information can help us overcome our preconceived ideas about high chroma colors: generally speaking, the highest level of chroma occurs in the middle value range (as opposed to at the light or dark end of the scale). There are always exceptions to that, with some colors having high chroma in a slightly lighter range and some really dark colors having high chroma (think Prussian Blue). But, if you start out with the idea that if you are seeing high chroma you are probably seeing at least a mid value then you will more times than not be in the right neighborhood value-wise.

Here are some examples of paintings containing high chroma. The greyscale version is presented too, so you can see how chroma trumps value!

A beautiful Isaac Levitan painting with lots of high chroma greens, but all that high chroma color is deceiving. Those foreground greens are at least 5 on the value scale! Bet you thought they were about a 7, right?

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Here is a vibrant Willard Metcalf which demonstrates our point ! All that warm chromatic color reads light, but is actually keyed much darker than you might have imagined. Much of this painting is in the middle key.


Metcalf greyscale

So, when you see or want to paint high chroma- think middle key!

P.S. Our Practical Color Mixing for Landscape Painters online class starts February 27. Learn to unlock the secrets of color mixing by understanding the concepts of hue, value, temperature and chroma. Discover how to create beautiful color harmonies using limited palettes and to edit the local color provided by Nature into a harmonious color scheme. Join us!

Why Draw?

Ivan Shishkin
Ivan Shishkin

Why Draw?

Often  landscape painters don’t think drawing is important. I am always amazed in my workshops and classes at the number of students who do not regularly use a sketchbook or include drawing as part of their art making process.


Isaac Levitan
Isaac Levitan

I was fortunate that the first artist I seriously studied with- Ned Jacob- is a fine draughtsman of figures, animals and the landscape. He is passionate about the importance of drawing. One of the most important things he said to me over the many years I studied with him was: Drawing will set you free. He never really explained what that meant, but over time I figured it out. So, now I am telling you: Drawing will set you free.

OK, that may sound like hyperbole, but it’s true. And, it’s true for several different reasons. Here they are.
First, drawing encourages observation- not casual looking, but concentrated, analytical observation. It slows you down. Its economy of means and materials allow for this to occur at almost any time and when time is short and effects fleeting.

When drawing, we are more likely to zero in on the one thing that first caught our notice, and less likely to try to capture everything out there (which often happens when painting).

Drawing, particularly mass drawing, is a bridge to painting- forcing us to focus on shape and value, without having to tackle color.

Deborah Paris Stream Study
Deborah Paris
Stream Study

Drawing, specifically, thumbnail sketches, can be an enormous aid to not only learning to compose but to trying out different compositional solutions before investing lots of time and painting materials in a bad one.

Drawing encourages intimate understanding of the structure of objects in the landscape as well as their surface appearance.  This knowledge will inform your efforts and make your work more authentic.


Tree Study Deborah Paris
Tree Study
Deborah Paris

But, perhaps the most important reason is that you cannot ever become a good landscape painter without being able to edit the raw material nature provides. If you are dependent on either what’s in front of you or a photographic reference, your options are always limited.

Deborah Paris
Deborah Paris

Editing means not only leaving things out, but moving them around, redesigning how they are shaped, in what part of the picture plane they are found, moving the viewer’s location, adding elements that support your visual idea but are not actually in the scene before you, and painting from memory and imagination. Drawing can give you the skills to do those things- the freedom to take the raw material nature provides and design works of art.
And, a long the way, you find that drawing itself is a great pleasure.  Drawing sets you free.


P.S. Our six week online class Drawing the Landscape is designed to introduce students to methods, materials, concepts (like linear perspective and comparative measurement), and strategies for successfully completing drawings from Nature both for their own sake and as invaluable reference for painting, reducing dependency on photography. There will be some art history thrown in to demonstrate the long and glorious tradition of drawing from Nature and some video demos to supplement the thorough written materials, illustrations and examples. Join us!

The Dark Side

One of the most challenging effects to paint are depictions of the night. Nocturnes have particularly fascinated artists since the latter part of the 19th century. Painting the night presents special challenges in “keying” the landscape- that is, selecting a range of values which best depicts the light effect desired. Of course, in the case of nocturnes, the value range moves toward the darker end of the scale. The majority of values are compressed into a very narrow range.
Here are four nocturnes by Isaac Levitan (Russian, 1860-1900) which show both the beauty and variety he brought to nocturne color harmonies. But, when we convert these to greyscale, we can see that narrow range of darker values provide the structure for these paintings.  In each of these Levitan has compressed the value scale to the “dark side” . He has used “lights” sparingly for drama and often the lights are actually a middle key. Yet, each nocturne is keyed slightly differently, but still reading as night. Study these closely and try to identify the values used in each portion of each painting. Much to be learned here!
cabin nocturne     road nocturne   bonfire.jpg!Large river nocturne   cabin nocturne desat munsell_value_scale road nocturne desat munsell_value_scale bonfire.jpg!Large desat munsell_value_scale   river nocturne desat   munsell_value_scale P.S. Our online classes Understanding Values in the Landscape I and II are scheduled for January and February and filling fast! Learn about Carlson’s Theory of Angles, atmospheric perspective, keying the landscape and lots more. Join us!