Pencil Drawing Tips on Value Balance

Values, by definition, are degrees of darkness and lightness. Every visual artist must develop their value sense. To help with this, I suggest making a five-value scale. Draw five boxes and make the first on the left totally black while leaving the last one white.

Then, fill up the middle one with a value in between black and white. This is the so-called “halftone”. Next, fill in the second box from the left with a value that lies between black and the halftone which yields a “dark gray”. Similarly, the second box from the right is filled with a value lying in between white and the halftone. This value is called “light gray”.

These five values are enough for a start and can do wonders for your artwork.

When planning a drawing composition it is not only important to balance the position of the shapes but also the values relative to the focal point.

Here are a few tips regarding value composition:

1. One way to better discern value differences is to squint. You loose sight of much of the detail so you see the contrasts much better.

2. Make sure that large areas of darks or lights are balanced within the frame of the boundaries of your ground. Trust your intuition and do not forget to include the negative spaces in your evaluation.

Balance does not mean the same amount of lights and darks. You may, for example, want to create a very dark drawing without any light. Still, even in this situation you need to balance the different shades of dark.

3. When planning a value composition it is advisable to first lay out 3 or 5 big shapes. Using the 5-value scale, give each of the shapes a particular value but make sure you end up with a good overall balance relative to your focal point both in terms of position and of value.

Later you can refine and work on a smaller and smaller scale while still maintaining a balance. And squint until it hurt!

Note that, for some reason, choosing an odd number of shapes seems to be more pleasing to the eye than an even number.

4. In the case you are drawing a realistic work, you should always be aware of how the light falls on the objects. You do not have much of a choice when it comes to drawing the variety of values produces by the light source.

You can simplify the totality of the values into the values of the 5-value scale. Also, you can make sure that the resulting light pattern is an interesting one.

However, once you have decided on a certain light pattern you must be quite accurate in realizing it as is, particularly in the case of pencil portraits. The viewer’s eye is very sensitive to misplaced values.

5. The use of thumbnail sketches is a good way to experiment with different value compositions. They do not take long to create and give you a good idea of the value distribution and the value balance or the lack thereof.

These few guidelines should be enough to give you a good start in handling values. Still, the key is always to observe reality as accurately as you can.

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