White, black, mid tone, then fill in the steps in between, evenly. You can google grey scale for comparison, but eyeball it first, for observation strengthening. It’s all about observation.
I’d never thought of making my own grey scale! Great idea. I’ve been struggling with a painting of a big flower, for years, and I pinned myself down this morning, as to why am I procrastinating and at a standstill with it???? I don’t like the colour, but I knew there was more to it, then I realised I’m struggling with the values! I love the greyscale printout of the flower, but I haven’t been able to translate that to colour……. Forgetting the most important step - mix the colour and compare its value to the greyscale!!! - Making my own greyscale has been the obvious answer. Painting/any art is about the values first, then colour. I know that, and that’s burnt into my brain, and is very obvious, but I forgot these little baby steps to get me to that point easily. I needed this refresher. It’s one of the first exercises I learnt when I was studying art in the 80s. So simple (and I thought boring), but it’s actually the most important step! - Having a hole punch and punching a hole in the greyscale is also essential, for the exercise of comparison. I love the idea of creating our own greyscale. It’s a reminder that we can do hard things. Thankyou so much for this great video.
We're so pleased you found it useful! A value scale is great for isolating individual colors so you can put them in context of the medium you're using and remove associations with the subject matter. Thanks for the comment!
You developed a greyscale from a chart already made. What do we do when we have no existing scale? You don’t explain how you got to 5? What we need is a beginning phase. A starting point. You suppose we already have a grey scale, that we already have a 5.. is it equals measures of black and white? Since I have no scale, what do I compare it to. Also, there is no checkout process provided on your site to purchase something from the cart???
If you don't have a color reference for middle gray, try to mix your middle gray to the light/dark value of a bright red like Cadmium Red Light, which is normally at Munsell Value 5 or at least in that ballpark at its "home value", the value at which a color is brightest. Many greens are also brightest at middle-gray, but they usually come out of the tube darker than their home value, so we recommended red. Hope this helps!
