 Welcome visitors and faithful subscribers to Monet Cafe. I'm excited about today's lesson because it's going to really help the beginner. It's for everyone but it's using a limited palette. A lot of times we don't have that many pastel selections as a new pastel artist and this lesson is going to be great because it helps us focus on a limited palette. And I wanted to just say a personal thank you to everyone who has just helped with the success of this channel. Never did I imagine that it would start to grow so quickly and at the point of this video we're just eight people away from 16,000 subscribers. And I would have to say I think the reason for the growth is because you guys like to learn. You don't want to just sit and watch somebody paint. You love all of the knowledge about art, color theory and so many other things that we talk about on this channel. So I'm so glad you're here. If you haven't subscribed I hope you will. All right let's get started. Now first let me describe what a high-key painting is. It's the area that is the lighter side of the value scale. Now unfortunately this one is numbered from 1 to 10, 10 being the darkest but that's not really correct. This is a gray scale and value finder and it shows you that the values from lightest to darkest but the darkest actually is value 1. I know this is very teeny but value 1 is the darkest going all the way around the value scale to the lightest which is value 10 on this. So the lighter or values are the higher numbers on the value scale. Don't let that confuse you. Just get one. It's really inexpensive on any art supply store. But for this painting we're focusing on those lighter values which are going to be the bottom ones that you see on this gray scale finder. Now here is the limited selection of pastels I've chosen and they're going from lightest on the side on the right side over to darkest and I think before it was all done I mean there may be 12 to 14 here. I maybe had 15 pastels or so but this is on the lighter side of the value scale. Now here I put up one of the darker pastels so you can see that's not even the darkest. That wouldn't be the the darkest on the value scale and that's the ones we are not going that high okay. So we're keeping a very limited high key meaning lighter values for this particular painting. And when I say high key just keep in mind those are the higher numbers and that value finder has little keys in it so that might help you to remember what high key values are. I recently had an interesting question about how hard it is to find those middle values. Well let me give a quick tip. If you convert your photo, if you take a picture of your pastel selections and you convert the photo to black and white it makes it a little easier to determine value. I've got a few of them you know a little out of order here but those middle values they can be hard so try that little trick and maybe it'll help. Now here's a website that I really found so interesting and it has so much great information and actually a lot of it is some information that I'm going to share in another video about how our color wheel is actually not the correct color wheel the one we're typically used to. So that's for another video but let's scroll down here. By the way I'll include the link to this site here. It's ECG Productions and let me scroll down here. This is some stuff about the color wheel but I'm going to go down to this interesting information. I'm just going to read this fairly quickly here. It's on color association so this has to do with what we're going to be talking about in this lesson about a limited value range which is in the higher key is what we're doing many the lighter values but I'm going to show you how it works the same what we're describing here with color as it does in value. So let me read this and then I'll explain what I mean. Color association. Many famous artists have studied and played with color but one name in particular is synonymous with modern color theory. Joseph Albers. Albers was a German artist who studied and taught at the Bauhaus school in Germany before coming to America and teaching at the Black Mountain College. Joseph Albers eventually went on to teach at Yale where he primarily studied colors and the ways they interact with one another. I would like this guy you know I mean because I'm just fascinated with color it's so interesting it's actually very mathematical. He developed the theory of the interaction of color and it's probably most famous for his exploration of chromatic interactions in his series of square paintings. Okay so let's go on and figure out what what he's trying to show or teach here. Albers homage to the square. Albers discovered that colors can appear differently depending on the colors surrounding them. This is such an important thing you can learn as an artist that's really going to help you grow. In fact you can create some interesting illusions by placing colors next to or within field of another colors other colors. In both of the examples below Albers placed the same color inside the fields of other color. The two green squares are the same color square. So look at these. It's pretty obvious this one looks lighter and this one looks darker. They're not. Okay if I could drag one over here you're gonna see I'm gonna do something in Photoshop where I will do just that. You can drag one over here you'll see they're exactly the same color. I think he actually shows this below. Same with these X's one looks darker and one looks lighter and here's where he did exactly that. He took this and just expanded this green and it's the same color but even if you look at it doesn't it look like you're you're getting like this illusion in your mind of it going from darker to lighter. Doesn't it look that way? It's so interesting and the same thing here you can see they really are the same color and some of you may be familiar with the infamous blue dress you know is it blue is it white is it whatever and that all had I'm not gonna go into that. That all had to do with you know what colors are surrounding it. All right so let me show you something that I did the same idea using just value and I did an example in Photoshop. Now here is a similar example that I've used with value instead of color and it's interesting to see that it works the same way. Now take a look at these two squares they are of different value obviously one is very light the one on the left and the other is a darker value. Now the two squares that you see in the middle the smaller ones similar to the color example are exactly the same color or shade or value and it's interesting isn't it how the one surrounded by the dark square looks lighter than the one surrounded by the light square. Perfect example of how value is affected by what surrounds it what values and colors surround it. So you know just to prove that let me grab one of these boxes let's see this one here I'm gonna pull it down here let's put it right here and now I'm gonna pull the other one over and tada sure enough it's the same color isn't that interesting so that's what I'm hoping to teach in this lesson is that once we learn some of these rules we're gonna really expand or grow as an artist when we can make value and color work in our favor. Alright let's get started. Now of course this information helps with painting in general but I'd like to describe to you why this really helps in understanding high-key painting and how value is dependent on what's around it. Notice in this Monet painting the darkest that there's not many values in this is very limited high key and here's another one. Notice that the darkest dark is not all that dark it probably be that little arch under the bridge in this particular painting and even in the one before that but that is not a very dark value if you were to hold it up to a really dark pastel. So these examples help us to understand what we mean by a limited palette because we're just staying in that high key or lighter value range of the value scale. Alright let's get started with some painting yay! This is an example of a high-key painting that I I really liked and please forgive me I forgot the name of the artist that I got this from but it was just a lovely example of a high-key painting and what I decided to do was to do a little quick example of it myself. I used a photograph in here thank you to Annette Meyer Atkins from our member reference on our Facebook group and I did a little quick value study with just three values there actually four including white and I did a quick little painting with a higher key limited palette. Now for this particular painting what I thought would be neat was to take a painting I've already done that was not in high key this is a much wider range of the value scale my darks in there if you notice are really dark and my lights are really light with that sky. It was on a homemade surface that kind of had that terracotta color so I decided to use a piece of color fix pastel paper to work on. Now there's my grayscale value finder using the higher key or the lighter values for this particular painting. Now here I am putting it next to the pastels I've chosen I think I've kind of got them a little in disarray there but um anyway you can see that that's not many pastels okay my darkest dark is probably that dark teal blue and that bright red there okay so I'm just speeding this up two times notice I took a actually took another painting that was the dimensions I wanted and just made a rectangle around it I think it's probably like a 6x9 or something like that but that pinkish red that I'm using right there is actually one of the darker pastels that I've chosen other than the dark darker teal blue that I chose I'm getting that down kind of more for even more warmth of the the color of the papers already warm but that's actually going to be one of my darkest darks which is kind of interesting because it looks lighter because it's on the darker surface just like in our example before value is dependent upon what surrounds it alright so I'm getting in some of the sky colors there I got in some of that darker blue in the background but of course the sky is going to be the lightest value and I'll try to put this photo up here too for you to have a reference to look at so I'm just kind of getting sky values in to kind of establish values I like to do that early on in the painting kind of quickly get in my lightest light in my darkest dark and that's that's what I'm doing here but I want you to pay attention to how the values change as I add more values and colors to it because right now those those lights look really light which they are going to continue to throughout the painting but those pinks that I put down for the tree don't look that they look kind of light don't they but in the end you'll see I make that same pink color the color of the flowers that are in the foreground and they're going to end up appearing darker in the foreground now there's my darkest blue right there okay so now you can easily see if you have trouble with value you can definitely I'm sure you can see that's the darkest value if I converted this to black and white you would see the blue and the pinkish reds there now are appearing as the darkest thing in the scene now what that pink did is it just gave a nice little glow behind it on top of even the terracotta color so now foregrounds are typically darker the thing that you see first in your vision is the foreground and so I'm going to go ahead and kind of establish a little trail to lead the eye back into the painting I didn't do that in my other one but I thought that would be a nice lead-in to the painting so again that was my darkest value now this pinkish color again is my next to darkest value so I'm kind of getting that in the foreground and in more of the shadowy areas the lightest part of the the landscape or the field is going to be those greens in the far distance in the field back there all right see I'm gradually getting a little lighter as I go back let's see here now I'm going to start working with some of the greens I've chosen my darker greens in value are going to be in the foreground and my lighter greens are going to be in that distant field in the back so let me paint a little bit more here and put on some music for you guys and just kind of pay attention to how the mood of the painting changes with the different values and color choices as I add them I hope you don't mind but while I paint I've often wanted to just read some things that are beautiful to my heart so enjoy the music and these words if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love I have become as a sounding brass or clanging symbol and if I have prophecy and I know all secrets and all knowledge and if I have all belief so as to remove mountains but do not have love I am nothing at all and if I give out all of my possessions to feed the poor and if I give my body to be burned but I do not have love I am not profited at all love is patient is kind love does not envy love does not boast it is not puffed up and it doesn't behave and decently love does not seek its own and is not provoked and it reckons not with evil it does not rejoice over the unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth it covers all believes all expects all endures all love never fails and whether there be prophecies they shall cease or tongues they shall cease or knowledge it shall become an active for we know in part and we prophesy in part but when that which is perfect has come then that which is in part shall be done away with when I was a child I spoke as a child I thought as a child I reasoned like a child but when I became a man or a woman I did away with childish matters for now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face now I know in part but then I shall know as I also have been known and now these three remain faith hope and love but the greatest of these is love well this certainly was a fun lesson for me I hope it was for you too and I hope you learned a lot about value and the value scale and the advantages of doing a high-key painting especially if you only have limited pastel supplies I think sometimes we think we have to just get more and more and it'll make our art better but sometimes it's good to kind of limit ourselves and limit our value ranges if anything just to focus more on correct painting sometimes having too many choices it's not always a good thing so anyway I hope you enjoyed this again and if you haven't subscribed already I really hope you will and it's always such a blessing to bring these videos to you my goal is to continue to bring free videos as long as I can and I know it's awesome for me and I hope it's awesome for you thanks so much guys happy happy painting