Colley Whisson knows that, traditionally, when we try to create depth, we are always trying to go with cool colors in the distance and warm colors in the foreground. A white roof building up close vs. a white roof building in the distance is going to contain different values because of the depth; one is closer and one is further, which changes the atmospheric colors. Colley teaches his students on how to view paintings with an atmospheric lens or softness between them and the object. We need to be thinking about how white, how light and how crisp the values are in the foreground vs. the softness or dullness of the values in distance. We may be using a different color just to grey off the building in the distance since it is not as light or white as the one in the foreground.

There are various ways to create depth, like edges and color, but value comes first. The biggest thing about value is getting color into your shadows. When we look out onto a landscape and we do not see there are colors in the shadows, we need to do an artistic translation to find the colors. The foreground, or closest elements to the viewer, is where we want the most color. Value and color are important, but there is an order. Colley’s order is measuring value first, then color. It is something you need to train your eye to do. Without seeing value in our painting first, we lose any resonance with cools and warms. We are really trying to analyze light and dark first, then finish it off with color.

One trick Colley has learned and taught his students, is when you are outside painting, because our eyes get so trained and conditioned to seeing things as they are, is to to take a picture of your landscape and turn your phone upside down to view the scene this way. Looking at the scene in a different way than usual is when you will truly see the range of cool to warm. It is easy to see a tree as a tree and a shadow as just black without atmospheric color.

Want more tips like this from Colley?

Join the waitlist for Colley’s upcoming mentoring course, “Developing an Impressionistic Approach” with open enrollment coming soon. Spaces are Limited. Click to find out more:

If you aren’t quite ready for the mentoring course, check out Colley’s video download package, “From Monochrome to Color,” to start off:

To listen more on creating Depth with Values, listen to Gabor and Colley on the Paint & Clay podcast here.