Contrast

Check out an artist named Scott Christensen - he has two different types of paintings. Some are called tonal, and often they have low contrast. However, most of his paintings have very high contrast. He is one of my favorite painters, and I love to look at how he simplifies the landscape to identify what is important.

Notice - what do you see first? Second? Contrast is one of the tools painters use to direct your attention. By developing your skill at recognizing value (dark/light) and how to use them to direct your audience, your paintings will become the more engaging.

Look at the three different pictures below. Notice that when you have a strong contrast, the picture is very compelling. The shadows are not only highly defined, but the face is very defined.

For the middle face, the shadows lighten up, have some color in the shadows (the top was b/w), and have depth and subtlety in the light areas.

In the light contrast, the shadows become very light, even difficult to discern the difference as easily as the other two. Subtlety reigns.

Excellent artist use all of these, for various reasons.