I talk A LOT about thumbnails. Or haven’t you heard?? Yes proselytizing thumbnails is a thing with me! Sometimes though, I get this question: “You talk about trying out different value options in thumbnails. I’m not sure I know what that means. It seems usually there’s only one option. So how do you see different value options?”

Hmmmmm…

Okay, let’s take you through my own experience with this recently. I think it’s a great example to show you how I choose different value options in thumbnails.

I was preparing for a demo on using bold colour with a limited palette for the Southwest Florida Pastel Society. First I needed to choose the subject. That was easy really. I love painting people so why stray from that?

I’d recently done a painting of a student on a bench in Winnaleah, Tasmania for another demo (for the Great Lakes Pastel Society) and I liked the idea of continuing this theme of a person on a bench. I had another photo of a student on a bench in Trequanda, Tuscany. Perfect!

The day was overcast, bright overcast. There was very little cast shadow. So what attracts me to this as a painting subject? Knowing the answer to this question is important as it can drive your decision-making!

I like the pose of the woman, leaning slightly forward, arms resting on legs, hands clasped, head turned away. I love that she’s sitting on a pink bench and that tiny parts of her echo that colour. (Check out the pink in her hoodie, on her inside sleeves, and on her shoes. These things really thrill me!)

So the first thing I realised was that I needed to crop in. This was about the women and some of the bench. There was no reason, in this case at least, to keep more than that in my painting. (There are also another possible paintings here that includes more of what we see in the photograph!)

For this painting session and in answer to my “why,” it seemed to make sense to use a vertical format. That settled, I then thought about about how much info to include around the figure.

I made a small sketch to help me decide and also to become familiar with the subject. It’s not in proportion but I didn’t worry about that at this point. I was just trying to explore a possible option via drawing.

The sketch reveals my initial thoughts about possible value options. 

As always, I design with three values. You can see I was feeling my way with nothing fully decided. It looks middle-value dominant with only small nuggets of light in the face, shoes, hat, and hands. (I do try to keep in mind the idea of value dominance when choosing different value options.)

Since I didn’t feel anything had been resolved, I started a thumbnail. At this point, I was familiar with the big shapes so I could work small and fast. This meant I could easily try out various possibilities as I thought of them.

The Five Different Value Options

I started with what almost seemed obvious: middle-value bench and shadow, plus the woman’s top. Lights were the surround and darks were only the pants and the small areas of dark below the hat. (As I go through my thumbnails, compare them to the photo.)

From there I decided to try something closer to my original sketch with a primarily middle-value option with a dark figure and only a few light nuggets from the sketch. Very different from my first thumbnail choices.

From there I wondered what it would be like to keep everything the same as the thumbnail above but add light to the ground. Hmmmmm not sure about that (but it’s always good to try!).

I then wondered about making the thumbnail light-dominant instead. Along with the ground and small nuggets of light in shoes, hands, and face, I added not only the wall but the bench as well.

Because I didn’t want the extreme contrast of dark against light, I decided to change the woman’s top back to a middle value while retaining the remainder in darks. So now the only middle value is the shadow on her face, her top and the shadow under the bench.

Finally, I decided to keep the light surround but make the bench a middle value. This meant I could change her top back into a dark value. (You can see in this thumbnail that I’d run out of room on the paper but it still was giving me the info I needed.)

Can you see how when values are close, you can push and pull them into one of the three main values of light, middle, and dark? Some things never changed – the dark pants would always remain dark, as would the light nuggets of shoes, hands, and face. The hat looks middle value in the photo. It stays that way in most of the thumbnails but changes to light in the fourth.

I left the thumbnails and came back to them. I think I would have been happy using my first and second thumbnails but in the end, I decided to challenge myself by choosing my fourth option. Could I keep the bench colourful and light? The colour of the bench, after all, was a big part of my why – why I was drawn to paint this subject.

Here’s the painting I did for my demo with some after-demo tweaks.

Here are the Unison Colour pastels I used (from my set).

And here are all five thumbnails together. The ruler is there to remind you how small they are!

As I look at the photo now, I find yet another possibility. What about the figure and the shadow under the bench as the dark value? I like the way, in this possibility, the darks would join together. And then what would my choices be for my lights and darks? 

I think I’d put the bench in as a middle value and the surrounding wall and ground as light. I’m surprised actually that I didn’t see/try this option! 

And what’s most surprising is that in none of my thumbnails did I try the shadow under the bench as a dark option which seems so obvious now! It always remained a middle value. I hope you can see how there are even more options!

So does this help? Does it explain how I see different value options in a scene? Please be sure to let me know in the comments!

Until next time!

~ Gail