value does the work

After spending six days with Richard McKinley, my annual visit (to the doctor of pastels) I am left once again pondering the most important phrase he shares. "Value does the work and color gets the glory." If you can't make it read in just value it will never work. Plus, I think that the mood of the painting should work in b/w. This is a study from my favorite slough.

value and Birge Harrison

Working in only value and making a mood with just a black pastel and an eraser helps me narrow down my intention. Translating it to color has freedom when the preliminary work is in a series of grays.

Recently I have been looking at Birge Harrison's paintings. Birge was first and foremost and amazing colorist. Just look at the beauty of this New York City painting.

Now that color depends on his strong skeleton of value. See what happens when you change the mode to black and white. Mood.

Birge Harrison was a Tonalist. He didn't try to describe a story. Instead he arranged each sensitively chosen color, line and the whole composition to create in intriguing poem. Each painting is built on a solid structure of value.
Here is a quote from his book titled Landscape Painting:
"Personally I am inclined to hold values to be the most important quality in a picture.- and this in spite of the fact that the work must depend for its charm upon the other qualities of color, design and refraction. But a picture that is good in all these respects, being weak and unsound in values, will nevertheless be a poor picture."