My Steps to Understand Values in a Landscape
Artists agree that success is often powered by how tones/values are treated in a watercolour painting.
Link mid-tones. Apply greatest tonal contrast at your focal point. Consider the arrangement of your tones.
When I study my scene, I create thumbnail sketches to select my tones and compose the arrangement of tones. Others take grey-scale images of a scene or use grey-scale cards. Some blur their eyes. Yet for some lucky others, tonal work is intuitive and they skip these studies.
Here are three tonal steps I consider when preparing a plein air work.
STEP 1 (explore and study the full tonal range in the scene)
STEP 2 (link mid-tones)
STEP 3 (select high-contrast areas, especially at a focal point and secondary "resting places" in a scene)
As an artist, I can change what I see to suit the mood I wish to convey. One of my favourite artists writes "do not feel captive to what you see". After considering my tones and experimenting with some colours I created the following watercolour from the above study.
