25 Days to Better Drawings: Value
Lesson Description
Lesson Eight of the 25 Days to Better Drawings Course introduces students to the fundamental element of art known as value. Value refers to the relative lightness or darkness of a color or tone, and it is one of the most important tools artists have to create the illusion of three-dimensional form, depth, and light. In this lesson, students explore shades and tints, understand the concept of a value scale, and practice creating their own value scale using graphite and white charcoal. By mastering value, students gain the ability to convey volume, contrast, and visual interest in their drawings.
Understanding Value, Shades, and Tints
The lesson begins with a discussion of what value is and why it is crucial to visual art. Matt explains that value is not color—it is the measure of light and dark in a drawing. Objects are perceived as three-dimensional because of variations in value. By carefully observing and replicating these variations, artists can create realistic and compelling forms.
Students learn the difference between shades and tints. Shades are created by adding black to a base tone, making it darker, while tints are produced by adding white, making the tone lighter. Understanding these variations is critical for representing light, shadow, and the subtleties of form.
The Value Scale: A Tool for Observation and Control
Next, the lesson introduces the value scale, an essential tool for artists. A value scale is a gradient that transitions from the lightest tone to the darkest, providing a visual reference for measuring and replicating values in a drawing. Matt explains that creating a value scale trains the eye to see subtle shifts in light and shadow and improves the artist’s ability to control tone in every drawing.
Students are guided through the construction of a value scale divided into multiple steps, often ranging from pure white to the darkest graphite or charcoal possible. This exercise is repeated several times to ensure that students become comfortable with gradation, blending, and achieving smooth transitions between steps.
Creating a Graphite Value Scale
The first hands-on exercise involves graphite pencils. Students begin with a simple linear or rectangular value scale on white drawing paper. Using a range of pencil grades, they fill in each step with controlled pressure to achieve the desired darkness. Matt emphasizes that consistent, even application is key, and encourages students to focus on both smooth transitions and clear distinctions between each step of the scale.
While graphite provides a straightforward medium for exploring value, Matt also explains the benefits of combining it with white charcoal on toned paper. This approach allows students to work both additively and subtractively, producing a fuller range of lights and darks while practicing control and sensitivity to value changes.
Using White Charcoal to Explore Tints
After practicing with graphite, students move on to white charcoal, particularly on gray or toned paper. White charcoal is used to create highlights, tints, and lighter areas that appear to emerge from the mid-tone paper. Matt demonstrates how applying white charcoal over a gray surface allows for a wider range of tonal possibilities and emphasizes the importance of considering the paper tone as part of the value scale.
Students practice layering white charcoal gradually to produce smooth tints, while also observing the interactions between light and dark areas. This dual approach—graphite for shades and white charcoal for tints—teaches students to think critically about value and gives them a versatile toolkit for future drawing exercises.
Applying the Value Scale to Drawing
Once students have created their value scales, Matt encourages them to reference the scale in subsequent drawings. Understanding how to translate a range of values from observation to paper is crucial for depicting realistic light, shadow, and form. The value scale becomes a practical guide, allowing students to measure and replicate tonal relationships accurately in any subject.
Students are reminded that value is the foundation of depth and contrast, influencing everything from simple still life to complex figure studies. By mastering value early in the course, students set themselves up for success in future lessons that involve shading, form, texture, and perspective.
Mastering Light and Shadow
By the end of Lesson Eight, students gain a comprehensive understanding of value as an essential element of drawing. They learn to distinguish shades and tints, construct smooth value scales using graphite and white charcoal, and apply these principles to their own work. Mastery of value allows artists to communicate light, depth, and form with clarity and confidence, setting the stage for more advanced drawing techniques throughout the remainder of the course.
Lesson Materials
Graphite drawing pencils: H, HB, 2B, 4B, gray drawing paper, white charcoal pencil, and a blending stump.
Lesson Resources
Distributing any content downloaded from this site is strictly prohibited and against the terms and conditions of use.
Download eBook
Course Curriculum
Founder of The Virtual Instructor, artist and teacher. Matt makes learning art easy to understand and enjoyable.
how can we make value scale on white paper without using charcoal pencil?
Hi Sapna,
Simply adjust the amount of pressure that you place on the pencil to create lighter values, allowing the white of the paper to affect the value. You can also use harder and lighter graphite pencils to create lighter values. You can see how this is accomplished in the module from “Pencil Drawing – The Guide to Graphite”…https://thevirtualinstructor.com/members/the-guide-to-graphite-graphite-grades-and-sharpening/
great help n info.thnx a lot.
Interesting to use white charcoal pencil to provide different tints – my current mentor is an accomplished graphite artist who abhors using anything other than graphite and the paper for tonal variation.
Hi Marise,
That’s unfortunate. In my opinion, it’s little narrow-minded to “abhor” any form of art other than the form that you prefer to create.
Matt,
What would you recommend for charcoal pencils? Brand? Type? etc.
i use NYONI brand
found it on amazon under color charcoal pencils….
good price for 8.
Still I want to buy some gray paper to get the most out of them!
Have fun with art!
Id like to see a demo of translating the gray scale to cad red, or ultramarine, or cad yellow.
Hi Mike, is there any difference, using a toned tan paper will make? I’m out of gray, lol.
Also, I have a white pastel pencil but not charcoal. Can I use it in the same way as white charcoal?
The tonal tool is such a great exercise well worth doing , so useful thank you for this ! You explain things so well ! Thank Matt !
Regards Jan
Thank you Matt. I found this helpful. I just began drawing in the Spring and don’t have any experience using charcoal. My white charcoal pencil does not seem to lay down the charcoal easily and I have to play with it. any ideas?
Hi Maureen,
This could be due to the paper you are using or if there is too much graphite already on the surface. White charcoal doesn’t easily spread over graphite applications. It’s best to apply the white graphite first and then push values darker with the graphite pencil.
thank you This does help. This is a new white charcoal pencil and it was the first time that I used white charcoal. I seemed to have less trouble the with the white charcoal when I practiced the following day
Matt, shouldn’t one of the values be the bare paper? I thought that was the point of using colored paper. Or am I getting ahead of myself?
Hi Margaret,
You could leave a section open if you wish but the gray will likely be a different temperature and will look out of place.
I’m not getting much of difference between 4B and 2B and between 2B and HB. I tried a different brand of pencils but still pretty much the same: it seems I can only get a smooth transition by varying the pressure which seems to defeat the purpose of using different B’s.
On the hand, the “jump” in value between HB and the ‘middle Grey’ is wide. I got better results with using HB for the first grey and the using the H for the others.
I like the white charcoal approach on the grey toned paper,
I must say the Derwent pencils are much darker then my EberharsFaber ones, so i made a second swatch with the Mars Lumograph black.
but when first putting the white charcoal and then the H it git scrachy while blending, nit smooth.
Now up to the vorms
is it normal that my HB is significantly darker than my 2B? th HB is staedler HB2 and and the 2b is a faber castell 9000, its driving me nuts
is it normal that my HB is significantly darker than my 2B? th HB is staedler HB2 and and the 2b is a faber castell 9000, its driving me nuts…
Which brand of graphite drawing pencils you would recommend?
Blending the white charcoal with graphite to achieve the lighter values was a new technique for me. Enjoyed the results!
I’m using Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils and the value scale was a disaster. 4B, 2B, and HB all looked the same. I redid it and got much better results with 6B, 2B, 2H, and 3H.
I think I’m getting all this in my head, although my fingers don’t always cooperate. A perhaps silly question I have is how to clean the kneaded eraser. Mine is giving me aa smudged look rather than being clean. That’s hardly my biggest issue, but I thought that one could be easily fixed. Thanks. for any help, and thanks for the course. I’m very much enjoying it.
Hi Pam,
Kneaded erasers are cleaned by kneading them. When they begin to smudge or leave residue on the surface, it’s time for a new one.
Hi Matt, I have been attending your course, pencil as beginner for a couple of weeks and continue to go back and reference course videos and doing the exercises to ensure I am nailing it. I’ve only completed day 8 and for me I’m fine with that. I enjoy the work and love what I am learning and I have been drawing and painting for years now, but no formal training or course outline.
Thank you, is basically the reason for my message. I am 59 years old, married for 34 years, an empty nester, 3 time cancer survivor and now dx with Multiple sclerosis, so this has given me some purpose in my live. Thank you!
Thank you! I am enjoying your course. You are filling up the gaps in my knowledge of drawing.
Loving the course, picking up a lot of things and it’s great to have a plan instead of just randomly watching one of your YouTube videos (which also are great) and jumping around to different things. Really feel like I’m learning. Question if you have time with pencils. My Faber Castell pencils aren’t really showing much difference between 2B and 4B. The 4B is definitely not as dark as it appears on your paper. Using Strathmore 80lb Toned Gray sketch paper…..maybe I need to get a higher quality pencil set?
I’m still just getting started with this course, but I’m seeing the same results between the 4B and 2B Derwent pencils when I lay them down on Strathmore 400 Series Toned Gray paper. I’ve tried several other brand pencils, and the difficulty persists.
Each of the brands lay down fine when I compare them on other papers I have on hand. Watching the video and comparing with my results the difference seems to be due to the tooth of the paper, not the pencils.
What is the best brand name for Grey Paper?