Use Value Masses to Dramatically Improve Your Paintings

Several viewers have asked me to expand on this idea of subject-driven and design-driven paintings. It is one of several foundational ideas, we could call them leverage points, that can help to dramatically improve your paintings.

[anamariacastilloperez]

Value masses, these two words have been a golden key for me to do simpler sketches, to come back drawing, since many years, I am grateful to you. Wonderful and generous videos.

[cecileegeorgeson_artist]

Love how you manage to explain these co, mplex concepts so I can understand

[marybethw]

😱Wow! Need to listen to this about 3 times!!

[robynguinn]

Thank you for producing such great videos....as a struggling self taught beginner, I find your teaching and demos inspiring. So glad to have found your channel....

[G.G.GG]

I took one of those senior painting classes and it was nice, but nothing really educational happening. The contrast of the fabulous content in this talk just makes horizons start to expand and bloom. So exciting.

[elsawessels]

Sir you meant so much for me
You are so talented and I like your style Thank you very much

[jbellinger]

Hi Ian,
You explain so well how we can interpret our three dimensional world onto a two dimensional surface! I have always thought of it in this way: Intellectually we know “ things “ are three dimensional but we can only “see”them in two dimensions. We can’t see around the objects. Getting students in the habit of doing a thumbnail sketch is important to the design phase... as you stress, too.

Your videos are a wealth of concise information with great examples that give students a road map to apply to their own painting journey. Thank you! I’m actually looking at one of my own landscapes I did a few years ago and things are popping out that I could do to improve it😎

[jackwheatley]

Thanks for your presentation. When you are massing light and dark shapes, what colors, if any, do you use? Jack wheatley

[gaylemartin]

Hi Ian. Your video was very interesting. The whole painting process is so complex, yet is comprehensible the way to you explain the process. Thank you for another successful lesson. Gayle P.S. I like your expressive hands!

[samuelmuiga]

That charcoal thumbnail is one of most valuable things I picked up that has improved my practice.Its saved me so many "yup that's not gonna fly" moments.

[orlane]

Thank you for your very clear explanations and the choice of your examples. I feel that you are giving us new keys to open the world " of how to put the landscape that we see onto the paper". (Sorry for the English. It is not my mother tongue). It is wonderful.

[veganbyday]

OMG, after you talked about your claw hands and said: "Well, that is what I got." 🤣I just died laughing and did not hear another thing you said... Ok, let me try the video again from the start now 😂.

[ChipAker]

Ian - Your concepts are changing my approach to painting so fundamentally. I'm positively astounded that I've never learned this before. My confidence and pleasure in the painting process is increasing and, yes, the paintings themselves are improving. Thank you!

[jonaslarson]

Very engaging, and your claws are great 😊

[rumblefsh]

Excellent video, thanks! Stuff one doesn't tend to hear talked about, but once revealed is indeed 'foundational'. More please! :D

[lorrainedespres]

Have you ever painted snow scene, during your travels, I follow you .Your books are also very helpful

[gabrielerosa]

YouTube have sent this great recommendation in this sunday afternoon. Thanks for your clarity, your deep but simple explanation...in few words you open a great door to scape from the photograph representation to the proper inner and design vission. It's not a " hearing and learning" instantly lesson, but it's a direction where we can experiment and try until, finally, we can learn it.

[HelenRietz]

Your examples in this lesson are wonderful (I love the "polite" painting and then the vision you had of it. This is timely because, as you know, I'm currently working on interpreting "real" subjects like a dramatic piece of barn wood, yet also trying to think of them in composition terms.

[nireclipse]

Thank you so much for this video! The examples really drove the point home and made it clear.

[carenfalconer]

Hello . I find your video information so helpful. I teach art to children and adults and have always explained that value is so important. You have helped add to this and I hope to share your ideas eith others AS you have helped me with my art too. Thank you.