Train Your Eyes to See Values

[@ProkoTV]

Learn more about shading and other fundamentals in the Drawing Basics course!- proko.com/drawing

[@michaelbonanno7476]

My teacher always said to 1. forget about what you’re looking at. 2. Squint at both your subject and drawing/painting to see if the values either merge together or separate themselves as you draw your lids together. And 3. Nature’s range of values far exceed paints value range. So simplify the values for the “effect” that you see, not the detail that can’t be seen if you look at the whole.

[@ProkoTV]

Solid way of putting it, right there.

[@kenkaniff2071]

I can just take my glasses off and everything is in a blur. Very useful artist tool to have a bad vision

[@bananaramabear3637]

Real

[@LadyMngwa]

Too true!

[@suzume_artz]

Guess my Myopia is finally being useful now 😂

[@erichall1]

This is a good idea- im gonna try it!

[@ClassicNostalgicShorts]

oh my gosh, i didn't even think of that! Yay! Thank you!

[@allenclark4235]

no matter how many times I see the checkerboard it still blows my mind.

[@beebop90]

Same. I still don't believe it...

[@ms00kye]

Something I like to do to practice my perception of value and value range is to watch old film and tv shows that were shot in black and white. And as an added bonus it’s pretty awesome seeing their deliberate staging, wardrobe, and composition choices when they’re conscious of the fact that the values need to read on screen to an audience who will see it in black and white. Of course this is still the case today but something about seeing how they made decisions around value and readability during that time can really drive it home, or at least it has for me.

[@ClassicNostalgicShorts]

yep! Though I don't only use references in black and white, I use references from 60s tv! (When it's black and white, it does help. I use a filter on my computer sometimes too.) Go Gilligan's Island!

[@pampamtamtam4001]

I really appreciate that you still cover these more fundamental aspects. My ego will tell me I fully understand these concepts, but these refreshers help a bunch. The ear example you used to explain the tunnel vision worked as a wonderful reminder for me, thanks!

[@OwnyOne]

Seeing videos as useful as these makes me think how easy it actually must be to properly learn art and its fundamentals with an actual mentor instead of learning just by yourself. Oh, to be that privileged in life.

[@Igami_No_Io]

It truly is unfortunately...when I have hiatus from my art academy... things started to go wrong, so much so that I almost forgot everything I learned ... thankfully, it still resides in my brain, although it is blurry

[@psterud]

Check your local community center if you have one. They'll often have art classes for relatively cheap. I teach drawing and painting at my local community center, and I take it very seriously. I'll even put in private overtime with students who show the willingness to learn.

[@stakholmsd]

now I need to train my eyes to see values in myself.

[@jonbro-j1x]

Bro...

[@yeyo4281]

Oof

[@LadyMngwa]

I just had to put that checkerboard in the Microsoft Paint to validate that the colors are the same and yet I do not see it. Unbelievable how misjudging our sight can be. Amazing video btw, very useful.

[@whythesenotes-adventuresin5576]

In the section where he bridges the two, you can get your mind to see the two squares as the same value by concentrating on the bridge, or as different values by concentrating on the shading surrounding the bridge.

[@sebastianfigueroa-me5hc]

So much value in this lesson. Ba dum tss!

[@ProkoTV]

🤣

[@CaptainMangles]

I get it! That's a good one!

[@TheCa006]

2:04 Didn't expect MC Ride in a Proko video

[@ShirleiBarnes]

Thank you for the video Proko. About squinting, I’ve found that removing my reading glasses 🤓 gives me the same effect of squinting. I see the blocks and no details.

[@kerhabplays]

relatable😩

[@michaelbarton5169]

I have been enjoying your content for 10-12yrs now, and it never disappoints. This is another episode of fantastic insights. Your episode has just helped me assimilate thoughts fr two other artists on value. The first was how we really only see about 100 diff values at a time and that local context is what we use to ensure things look real and 3D, as opposed to flat or bizarre and unreal. Her presentation was clunky, but yours really brought it all together and gave it a practical method of application. The second deals with values in colour, ensuring you get the base values right all over the subject before getting too detailed. But he didn't really talk much about the "local context" that fools our eyes to see the groups of values (shd we call those "family values"? 😉) so that things look right overall, but which have overlapping of values between the various value families. I think that I'll try this next piece, where I'll do an overlapping of value families fr the overall piece and see where they intersect, kind of like doing multiple colour triad studies and seeing how they intersect. Thanks so much for your informative and fun videos!

[@Woog_Lord]

Thank you proko! This helps greatly with my art, and was the first time I could really break the checkerboard illusion without squinting!

[@Ardeact]

I just starting take my art skills seriously, I'm on a note taking binge, your channel has been incredibly helpful

[@ProkoTV]

That's awesome to hear! It means a lot to know our videos are useful. Good luck with your learning!

[@jobrown8146]

Wow, I'm only 1m 30secs in and this is making so much sense. The comparisons are nailing it for me.

[@ProkoTV]

Glad it helps!

[@Chinornor]

This is awesome and straight to the point! I believe one of the real test of deciding values most times is when a shadow reflects on a local color. Values tends to be difficult to achieve- am talking about painting

[@SkafleArt]

Such a well crafted educational video. Well done!

[@edgarocampopazmino6537]

Although this was about drawing, I've always found that the finearts has applied to life. I learned at lie drawing in school that yo draw realistically, draw what you see, not what you THINK you see. it is later when I stumbled across Seneca that said, we suffer more in imagination thanin reality. I remember leaning to draw realistically and how I was not satisfied as it didn't quite look like I wanted it to look. I was drawing with my imagination, not my eyes. Now this short but sucinct video gave me a new way to look a reference, at life! I've always known about tonal values as shape, but to see it explained here so majesticaly, I am rejuvinated to up my game in drawing! We often see life and references with tunnel visi, focused on part or just the details and when we look back or step back we'r confused. It's becase you need to step back while squting, as you journey furher back you will see patterns, you will loose focus and tunnel vision but you'll gain a larger understanding of how things conect. In drawing, in life, depending how close you are, you need to adjust your vision. Focus amd squinting, see life through your imagination sometimes and remember to sometimes see the world for what it is and not for what it should be. It's incredible! Thank you so much!

[@VickKelly-v9f]

Thanks! Your tutorials are very very helpful . You are very generous!

[@hosolock]

Yay, Skelly is back!

[@notokek]

I love you, proko, you're my art (and humour) father

[@GeenoGab]

This is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO important if you want to learn how to paint. I can't stress it enough!

[@barbarafschadomsky]

As always, so neatly explained!

[@ciscoponch67]

I totally forgot, that in Proko's course on Anatomy and Figure Drawing, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Values were first introduced!!! 😊

[@antonioblanco3086]

Great lesson

[@UserHilux579]

You’d probably not believe what profound psychosocial epiphany I just got from something you said at the beginning of your vid - thanks !

[@danjaworsky]

Median noise filter is a great tip

[@Mariana-ym6zf]

Great video! I just subscribed to your channel.

[@simeongalda5988]

thanks i needed this information a lot, love you proko

[@sabersight908]

my god this is so helpful xD i knew you should take a step back and look at your work, but i knew it as stepping back so you can keep the work from looking over crowded and more balanced, spot the empty space that makes it look odd and all xD

[@arufu6339]

Thanks for the Median blur! I used the simple blur tool to help me once and I did notice the values just leaked everywhere

[@ch-arts-us]

My painting teacher Carol O'Malia told me imagine it with sunglasses on or actually wear sunglasses. Helps bring it all down a notch and see it better.

[@SkullDixon]

Tunnel vision is why the old masters would stand while drawing and draw on a surface that was set on 80 - 90 angle so they could easily step back and see the whole image. I find that drawing at a table makes it easier to tunnel vision while working.

[@venice_zelyv]

2:04 he really went yah

[@aydakoprulu1404]

Thank you so much!

[@TheUltimateScottz]

2:04 is that a damn death grips sample

[@catalystcomet]

I cut out some circles from a red gel for a spotlight and I stuck them in my welding goggles. Now I look really cool and all I see are values

[@tomaszsyrek3728]

that's what I'm learning now and you upload a video on it boy what the hell boy

[@04cassius-jake]

0:42 slow as much as you can,they're different until they touched each other Edit: since people keep trying to be smart,yes i know how it works, i'm just showing that you don't notice until they touch each other

[@b.c.5555]

color pick the squares in an image editor and you'll see that they're still the same color. It's all in your eyes

[@artunblock9433]

Your eyes are deceiving you, they're the same

[@slavsit7600]

genuinely how tf does that work, they look so different

[@andresbellagamba4875]

grab the color picker in photoshop. they are not different. i think you are the one trying to be smart.

[@04cassius-jake]

@andresbellagamba4875 please read the comment again, i know how this works

[@FLow-dl2lv]

Popped up at the right time!

[@RTWLR]

The reference function in Procreate has a setting that allows you to see the whole of your canvas or certain areas from it, kinda like drone catching a bird's eye view. I know digital art is a totally different ballgame, but it's how Procreate helps you avoid tunnel vision

[@mykneeshurt8393]

Great content. Sadly, there are WAY too many ads in this video for me to be able to watch it.

[@DS-ic5ps]

Very helpful!

[@skyfallunoPretzel]

5:25 true for writing as well the comment afterword

[@DanAbsalonson]

Fantastic video.

[@AZTECMAN]

If I'm not wrong, it is not just 'expectations', but rather the contraction and dilation of the pupil at work. I had to look up the word for it: "Pupillary response".

[@ciscoponch67]

True value!!!????🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 (this is both an appreciation and a subliminal for hardware???) ❤

[@siarametanal4317]

Squinting your eyes helps a lot to see the values and not be distracted by colour

[@Mrpstew]

I found taking a photo of my drawing helps me see it with a different set of eyes. The camera never lies and finds those errors in value.

[@LawsofPaul]

I squinted at the fully rendered hand when he shifted back to primary forms and was amazed by how effective it was 😂

[@distortilla]

Love your content

[@HHh-hg6im]

2:03 was that fucking death grips??????

[@JuberKokane-ue3nm]

Values and out lines Important

[@bhuvanatrayee3476]

this is crazy to see how our perception fools us

[@paijwa]

Did not expect to hear MC Ride suddenly yell in a proko vid

[@Djdiducucjjdjskdkd]

Can median tool be found in other programs?

[@Texelion]

Also tunnel vision is even worse when drawing digitally, everytime I zoom in to do some details and then zoom out, everything is wrong. Maybe putting the navigator on my second screen to keep a full view of the picture could help.

[@cupidstunt7935]

take a sreenshot of the chess board when A&B are connected with the strip ( 1.10 ). Open in your gallery and enlarge the A&B untill if fills the screen 🤔

[@ProkoTV]

Go for it. It's the same lol

[@Tbone_Crusader]

Bravo Proko.. Great infos and knowledge👍👍💪

[@nihal114]

I find it difficult to be consistent with a specific value. For example, if the value under the chin and behind the ear is same and I am using just a single shade of pencil, I find it difficult to keep them same. I face this special when i am doing the details. Any tips?

[@lonestarr1490]

My tip would be: Try starting with just two values: if you're working with pencil, then it's best to start with the lightest light value and the lightest shadow value (or you just leave the light part blank for now). Draw in all the shadow shapes in that one shadow value. You then have a baseline from where to start and deepen the shadows where they need it. That way you can constantly compare different areas and judge whether one is darker than the other or not (by taking the value context effect from the video into consideration). It's basically what one does when painting: first block in color and go from there. It's always easier to manipulate stuff that's already on the canvas than to add in completely new things.

[@UserHilux579]

@@lonestarr1490thank-you, great explanation !

[@jcepri]

6:05 Are there any free tools that can do that? I don't have photoshop

[@ProkoTV]

You can use the free program Photopea in your browser without any installation. It's pretty much exactly Photoshop. We also made a roll that does this one function for free that we'll put up on a Promo for anyone to use soon. I'll reply to this comment with it when we've released that on the website.

[@jomassey4207]

Using black and white digital apps on your painting can show how your values are.

[@Schr0dingers_Cat]

I finally found your channel-you're the guy who whipped the skeleton ToT

[@hastiartio9945]

Just with that, I feel like I became a better artist😭

[@badusername9903]

the mc ride scream hit me like a ton of bricks dear lord

[@thesunisfake]

WW3 about to end the world and im learning about drawing lets go!!

[@thesleepypiggy]

2:04 MC RIDE?!

[@ProkoTV]

It goes it goes it goes it goes it goes it goes-

[@projp9057]

Ok!

[@itrytobegood]

my eyes only see values in my dreams 😵‍💫

[@St.Extreme]

Thanks for this! Now I can be racist more effectively!

[@fig1852]

Tru tho

[@GRAZZlmao]

💀💀💀💀

[@Radientzone345]

Lmao

[@Raifyiix]

top ten comments ive ever read

[@Ironcladded]

I'm supprised they havent deleted this comment yet xD

[@petervargas483]

❤

[@smugasta]

Як приємно побачити когось із незміненим прізвищем Прокопенко в далекій країні за океаном. Наче частинка дому заблукала десь далеко. Як кажуть: нашого цвіту по всьому світу...

[@slightlysadoatmeal6183]

2:04 i might just be high but i swear to god that scream is MC Ride (death grips)

[@VedranKlemens]

Speaking of values, Proko, can we talk about the value of not blinding your audience with that pure white background? :) An ambient and darker value would make your otherwise fantastic videos easier to watch.

[@traveler2370]

Squint?

[@jacobmz3523]

It goes it goes it goes it goes….!

[@ProkoTV]

It's actually a sound clip from The Mummy but we think it sounds like MC Ride too lol

[@jacobmz3523]

Huh, i wonder if he’s imitating the same clip?

[@mozartwa1]

this course is not for artists - this is a course for dentists on the principles of choosing the right tonal shades of teeth))

[@Acrowe]

Poor Mr. Skeleton 😢

[@thethirdcrouch]

i didn't know my squinting is valid

[@murisy_here]

Tunnel Vision?? Training Wheels??? Melanie?

[@user-jojo08]

Good thing my vision is absolute shit, cause everything is blurry, even anything that is about 10 inches away from my face.

[@BlinTime]

You are funny🙂

[@MuhireYonatani]

I don't believe they look the same!

[@lycilius997]

I am so broke that i can't even afford for a pencil I have to be dependent on my parents for a while I am sry.. But i will be present next year in premium.. Thx ✨

[@hmoser6416]

Understand, I'm so broke can't even afford to pay attention :/

[@ProkoTV]

No need to buy a premium course! We're just happy if you're getting to find some time to make art in that situation. Just stick to the free lessons and hopefully learn something along the way! Thanks for watching!

[@hmoser6416]

@ProkoTV Thank you. I just started watching. Not sure I'll be able to do much but want to try. I had spinal surgery in January, and have another coming in February, God willing. Am disabled. Wanted to see what I can do with practice. it's been over 40 years since I've done any drawing/sketching. My shoulder, hands and neck are my biggest obstacles. Thank you, for all you do, and listening.

[@JordyField]

Brain*

[@zNUMINOUSz]

Ts

[@hyerrrvawesome6744]

I just unfocus my eyes. Does anyone else do this?

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

Pet peeve: the checkerboard illusion is not an illusion at all, not in any meaningful sense anyway. The only trickery going on is from the intellect misunderstanding vision. The question the brain is trying to answer is "what situation is the most compatible with this luminous stimulus", not "what are the properties of the surface of this image". And thank god that is so - our hability to actually make sense of the world through vision only even makes sense this way. If you were to take a real chess set and reproduce the situation, even though the same amount of light would be reaching your eyes coming from A and B, you'd be absolutely correct in saying B is of a lighter color but in shadow. If we accept that the picture is representing that situation, than "B is of a lighter color but in shadow" is also what your brain should see in the picture. Calling this an optical illusion would mean that recognizing any kind of picture at all is an optical illusion, and really that even recognizing actual objects in the world is an optical illusion - it's not, it's just vision. So we do get tricked about the surface value, but that's just because we expect the brain to do something much less useful than what it is doing, it's not a failure of vision, but of reflection on the nature of vision : p PS: this is not to say there is no such a thing as an optical illusion. Forced perspective for example leads to false expectations about what a scene represents. The one with parallel lines looking broken when occluded as well, although that one may have statistical reason, so maybe it would be in another category.

[@abcchen4903]

Just because an illusion has a functional purpose in our visual system doesn’t make it not an illusion. In the case of the checkerboard effect, our brain indeed helps us perceive lightness under different lightings, but in doing so, it misjudges actual brightness values in the same way as the first example at 0:28. That misjudgment is what defines an illusion-it’s not about whether it’s failure or not but about a mismatch between perception and reality. So, calling it an illusion is just an accurate description of what’s happening. And it doesn’t redefine all vision as optical illusions; it just points out a specific misperception.

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

@@abcchen4903 At the end of the day it comes down to definitions, but I disagree that this is a useful way to use words. Is recognizing a face in a picture an illusion? Is recognizing the surface color of an actual object in the world an illusion? Is recognizing different objects in the world through vision an illusion? All of these are extension of the same conceptualization that calls the "checkerboard illusion" an illusion, but they lead to identifying vision with illusion, which is useless. Vision is not about the brightness getting to your eyes - vision is about interpreting that signal to try and reconstruct information about the world. By the same token, understanding spoken word, instead of just noting a sequence of frequencies and amplitudes, would be an illusion. This line of thought identifies perception with illusion, which is conceptually useless and misses the whole point of perception. All perception is "misperception" if we define "correct" perception to be just parroting the "input" to the senses, because that's simply not the point of perception. The usage I'm defending is actually used in some areas as well. Take the field of Computer Vision, for example: it deals with taking in image data and using it to recognize stuff. Crucially, simply taking a picture - ie, recording brightness -, with no interpretation or classification, is not considered computer vision. This distinction is very useful and points to a better understanding of the whole subject. Not making this distinction is precisely what leads one to expect that the perception of local color in an image should be a 1:1 correspondence with brightness, causing confusion and mistakes.

[@albericponcedeleon2696]

I was about to write a comment pointing out the same thing. It's often discussed as the brain being "tricked" because it comes up within the context of an optical illusion. But it's more that the brain uses context in the environment to correct for varied lighting conditions and makes distinctions where we expect them to be. When we try to paint or draw, we recreate what we perceived and not what is. We have to train ourselves to undo those automatic corrections to accurately mimic natural lighting in our art pieces.

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

@@albericponcedeleon2696 Yeah. And, on the flip side, if we take vision for what it is, it is actually giving us way more information, which we actually use all the time to be able to do more than just blindly copy a scene. As an aside, I always imagine a little cartoon of the brain being all bummed because it's doing all this work and we're like "silly brain is tricked all the time" : p

[@TheToneBender]

I can just unfocus my eyes

[@RemoteGhost-u2t]

What took you so long!?😭😭😭

[@scottenosh4548]

That painting by Sargent looks like Anthony Hopkins and Donald Southerland in one person.

[@djandrian7751]

im asian so i have squint auto equipped

[@ManifestedMadness]

I don't see the value of learning this

[@nordictomo]

i don't have photoshop

[@sketchartist1964]

Why so much focus on values in drawing? I don't see this preoccupation with hyper realistic values in the drawings of Sargent or other artists of his time. Nowadays artists seem to be after the look of a b/w photograph.

[@MahmoudKhatib-ug8eh]

Yay first comment!

[@ProkoTV]

Third. sorry.

[@mb3938]

Is this an ai script? 😢

[@ProkoTV]

Nope! That's a Stan Prokopenko-wtitten script. No need to use AI to talk about a thing you've been teaching since before you even had a full mustache lol

[@dxugxa9543]

Your chessboard not enough contrast actually it isn't a black it 's a gray dude a gray chessboard wtf without dependence would be cast shadow or own shadow, black is black...

[@Die.Trying]

8:13 Steve Huston?!