VALUES: 10 Sketchbook Exercises to Try

In drawing and painting, the impression of form and light is conveyed by values.  Values are the many different shades, or tones, between white and black.

Try a few, or all, of these "values" exercises in your sketchbook.  I've included examples from my own sketchbooks . . .

1)  Draw some DRAPERY, or draped fabric -- Use charcoal, charcoal pencil, or a very soft drawing pencil (6B). Try to have at least four values in your drawing -- lightest (the white of your paper), a light medium gray, a darker medium gray, and a black. . .

2)  Draw some machinery, or a train, a bike, or a car -- in ink.  Then mix up some ink washes -- 3 different strengths (just put a little India ink in a Dixie Cup and add a little water).  Then, paint your values.  Leave the paper white in some places, for your lightest light. . . 

3)  OK, it's time for something simple -- a shiny, red apple!  Set your apple on a white piece of paper, have a strong light source, so you can see a good cast shadow.  Now, draw your apple with a pencil.

4)  Now, do a value painting of a face.  Draw the face lightly in pencil, from a photo or from life.  (If you're going to draw or paint kids from life, wait until they're sleeping -- they don't move and they always look so sweet :)  Then, mix up a light gray on your palette (French Ultramarine mixed with Burnt Sienna makes a nice gray).  Use that mixture to paint your values, leaving the white of your paper for your lightest light . . . 

5)  Draw a landscape with some trees, a building, and a figure.  Simplify this into two categories of shapes -- sunlit and shadow.  Leave all the sunlit shapes white.  Create a middle value in the shadow shapes by cross-hatching with the pen. . . 

6)  Set up a simple still life in your kitchen.  Do a simple pencil drawing -- then, paint a monochromatic value painting, with burnt sienna washes.  Try to have 4 or 5 different values. . . 

7)  Set up another simple still life on a patterned surface.  Do a few small value sketches, rendering your values in different ways.  One, draw your sketch entirely in pencil. Another, use pencil and ink -- the white of the paper for the lightest light, the pencil for the grays, and the ink for the black. . . 

8)  Set up another very simple still life -- just 2 objects -- like a piece of fruit and a bottle.  Use a pencil for the entire drawing. . . 

9)  Now, using a ball-point pen, draw a houseplant or a bowl of fruit.  Use cross-hatching for the mid-values and untouched paper for the lightest value.  The denser the cross-hatch, the darker it looks . . . 

10)  For the last exercise -- draw a simple egg.  Not as simple as it should be.  For this drawing, use charcoal, charcoal pencil, or a soft pencil (6B).   I once had a drawing teacher who wanted us to draw a dozen eggs and we weren't allowed to use any lines.  I'm not that hard-core . . . 

Any of these drawings could be developed later into a painting.  It's good to have a value plan, before you add color into the equation.