What Is a Watercolour Value?
A watercolour value describes how light or dark a colour appears.
Light values contain more water and less pigment. Dark values contain more pigment and less water. By changing this balance, you can create several strengths from just one colour.
Values help you add contrast, shadows and depth to your paintings. Without enough contrast, the different parts of an artwork can blend together and look flat.
In this tutorial, you’ll create five values:
- Lightest: very watery
- Light
- Medium
- Dark
- Darkest: rich and creamy
You don’t need white paint to make watercolour lighter. Simply add more water and allow the white paper to shine through.