No matter what types of painting you are intend to draw, you may need to pay attention to several aspects of the painting; it is the same with Chinese painting. Deciding the painting context can be difficult for you may be puzzled by the tones of the painting. What is the tone of a painting?
No matter what types of painting you are intend to draw, you may need to pay attention to several aspects of the painting; it is the same with Chinese painting. Deciding the painting context can be difficult for you may be puzzled by the tones of the painting. What is the tone of a painting?
The importance of tone
What tone means in a painting context is simple. It's how light or dark a color is, rather than what the actual color or hue is. Yet implementing tone in a painting is often bothersome to artists because they always get distracted by the strong appeal of color.
Every color can produce a variety of tones; how light or dark these are depends on the color. It's important to realize that tones are relative, that how dark or light they seem depends on what's going on around them. A tone that's obviously light in one context may seem darker in another if it's surrounded by even lighter tones.
The number or range of tones that can be produced also varies. Lighter hues (such as yellows) will produce a smaller range of tones than darker ones (such as blacks). In other words, if a painting is going to be successful, you must get your tones right, otherwise it's just going to be visual noise. The first step to doing this is to remove color from the equation, to create a range of tone using only black.
Basic tone
The two extreme tones or values are black (very dark) and white (very light). Recognizing the tone or value of a color, rather than the hue, is important to a painter because successful paintings have tonal contrast in them, or a range of values.
A painting with only mid-tones will have the risks of being flat and dull. Value or tonal contrast creates visual interest or excitement in a painting. A high-key painting is one in which the contrasts in value or tone are extreme, from black right through the range of mid-tones down to white. A low-key painting is one in which the tonal range is narrower.
With oils or acrylics, the easiest way to lighten a color is to add white. But this is not the only way and not always the ideal as it reduces the intensity of the color. You can also lighten a color by adding another color of a lighter value. For example, to lighten a dark red, you can add a little yellow.