Unraveling the Gradation Tool

Published: Sat, 03/30/24

Happy Easter to those who celebrate and Happy Springtime to everybody!

My update continues to be positive. The wrist brace is gone and my ability to use my right leg is increasing along with regaining my strength and stamina.

You have noticed I'm sure that we are running a couple of fantastic sales on our Academy courses and our Lessons' downloads. That all ends at midnight tomorrow night! Neither of these require my participation because they are all prerecorded. Thanks to video, the teaching doesn't have to stop when something interferes!

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this encore post from two years ago!

Dear ,

Sometimes we think of gradation as something we do to show volume, but there's a lot more to it. To begin with, gradation is a tool we use to create the effect of gradual change. For gradating colors and values, the painting skill we use to show that is blending. The principle of gradation is a law of nature, like all principles are. Laws govern how things work.

THE WORLD WITHOUT THE LAW OF GRADATION

Without that law of nature of value and color, here's how things would appear to us:

But that's not all, gradation happens with the size of things as they move into distance. We call that linear perspective.

It happens with textures as they, too, move onto distance.

And it is no surprise to the artist that gradation of value show volume, whether as artists we show it in a continuous blend or in intervals of change in value.

NOW, THERE'S EVEN MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT!

Enjoy a weekend of finding gradations!

Happy Painting,

Dianne

[email protected]

During my Language of Painting series, I explained the role of our visual elements. If you'd like to review those roles to better understand the behavior of elements, here are the links to each of those discussions: Color --Value -- Shape -- Texture -- Size -- Line and Direction

You can access the archive of all my newsletters (as well as the Quick Tips and other stuff) at any time by going HERE.

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