Paying Attention to Value

Elizabeth Barton gave excellent advice about using value on her blog a couple of months ago. She also said quite a bit about value in this blogpost in which she says, “Check your value patterns – the deepest darks should create an interesting shape overall as should the brightest lights. It’s often easiest to see this by either squinting, or by taking a photograph, putting it intoPhotoshop and desaturating the colour. When it’s in black and white the value pattern becomes quite evident.”

I had Elizabeth’s advice in mind when I was searching for a photo to use for the latest succulent quilt.

I rejected a lot of photos, because the lights and darks just looked scattered and didn't interest me. One of the reasons I liked this photo was because the two large leaves in the upper right are relatively dark and create a diagonal balanced by the dark area at the bottom left. I was planning on emphasizing the values when I did my painting.
However, now that I compare my finished quilt to the original photo, I think I forgot my original thoughts. Black and white photos do help in seeing value without being distracted by color. I like how my final quilt came up, but the shading is very different than the photo. I was perhaps a bit stingy with the white paint as I was finishing for fear of overdoing it.

I have a second piece in progress using this photo. I will pay more attention to my original inspiration this second time.