     Last week my beginner private student mastered the 9 tone scale and completed both a blended and a graduated tone scale. This week they copied a tonal pattern, then a tonal picture and then I did a quick tonal rough impression of my student as she took her coffee break to show her how applying the exact same rules she had used to paint the pattern and image gave her the ability to paint anything she could see, all that was required now was to build on this foundation lesson, develop the confidence that comes from practice with a qualified teacher guide. Both my student and I are nature lovers. I am pleased with her progress, it will not be long before we are painting flowers and landscapes from life together. I am enjoying teaching again. A black and white and shades of gray picture or photograph is a tonal picture. With no colour present the image appears only as tonal values or light and shade. It is only because of the effect of light hitting the things we look at that we can tell what they look like. Learning to see the exact tonal value of these things is the most important thing an artist has to do in order to be able to represent that subject as a painting. You cannot paint it until you can see it correctly. It sounds obvious, but we can replicate dark as black paint, very simply and even the lightest tone by using white paint, but seeing and mixing the middle tone the medium dark and medium light tone takes training. This is one of the most important lessons for any artist and learning to see and replicate tones could be likened to the important as being able to hear and replicate music notes for a musician. I always teach my students health and safety in the choice and use of art supplies and place a strong emphasis on learning to see tonal value and replicate the correct tone or light and shade in your painting. The demonstration pictures represent a second lesson in painting in my art studio.      Add Comment The Importance of Tonal Value for an Artist. 09/01/2010
 Artist Henri Matisse said (in his A Painter's Notes, 1908): "When I have found the relationship of all the tones the result must be a living harmony of all the tones, a harmony not unlike that of a musical composition." Today’s lesson in my Mooroopna studio was about how to know what was quality oil paint, the toxic pigments to avoid and a some basic information about other painting supplies. The learning exercise was to paint two 9 tone scales using our eyes to learn to see the tone, so we will be capable of painting what we are seeing not what we are thinking once we begin to paint real objects. My student performed very well. This was the first time she had ever painted. Once the two tonal scales were completed the student learned how to make crisp clean edges of wet paint to wet paint and how to also make a blended tone scale without hard edges. A lesson on how to clean and care for oil paint brushes using non toxic methods that do not require using thinners followed the painting lesson. My student like me is keen to avoid using any harmful chemicals. I keep a clean air studio policy. Believe me when I say that a total beginner gets off faster than an established painter and there are more of a joy to teach there are no well entrenched bad habits to undo. The tonal value, usually shortened to one word, 'tone' though sometimes called the 'value', (which means the light and shade values, of a painting, not the monetary worth of a painting,) are more important than the colours. You can distort the colour and still have a good representation of the subject you paint but you cannot paint well until you are able to see and match a tonal value. To paint something, you must get be able to see and identify the tone of the item you want to paint and match it exactly in your paint. So for the first few lessons while mastering this, my students work only with black and white paint. I was very happy with how the lesson went.  | Follow me on Facebook at @ Kathy Shell
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