Value always does the work

The master Jean-Francois Millet wrote in a letter, "If a sketch seen in the dim half light at the end of the day has the requisite balance- ponderation- it is a picture: if not, no clever arrangement of color, no skill in drawing our elaborate finish, can ever make our a picture."
That said- as one surfs the slippery tide of color vibration one can easily get lost. My solution is to also spent time making large value pastels. It's one of those catch 22s. The abstract of the painting is always the mos important..if that doesn't work it will never work. We want to be free to answer to the painting rather than impose the "scene." Therefore I make these and then put them aside.

Jean-Francois Millet, the Tonalists, value, and its importance

9x18 watercolor underpainting

9x18 pastel, value study

Jean-Francois Millet is reported to have said upon frequent occasions, " The end of the day is the test of a picture" By this he meant that in twilight the colors in the picture are merged into the masses of light and dark, the details are subordinated also to these masses, and it is possible to judge whether the values of a picture, which are it's very soul and body, are properly related. To quote in his own words from Sensier, "If a sketch is seen in dim half light at the end of a day has the requisite balance-ponderation-it is a picture; if not, no clever arrangement of colors, no skill in drawing or elaborate finish, can ever make it into a picture."

This was written in 1910 in a New York Times review by art critic Charles DeKay. It was in reference to an exhibition of contemporary American landscape painters. It was at the time of the clash of the Tonalists, in particular Charles Warren Eaton and the realism of painters like Bellows and Robert Henri. DeKay used Millet as the yardstick upon which to measure all modern landscapes.

Put simply- values matter. Your work must  have a structure based in value (not color) that relates in a strong composition and reads dramatically  from a distance.

Thinking about this I have created a value study and watercolor underpainting...so far. It will be about evening twilight before the snow flurries burst out of the clouds. The drama. The excitement and beauty. I remember this particular day and have painted about it before, see link. I didn't use this January painting as a guide, in fact I never even looked at it till now. I just remember it so well. First I created the watercolor underpainting -easy.  But I know that if the finished painting is to succeed I must get the value structure right. I must admit, I struggled with that value study.