The tonal range in a painting is the amount of contrast from the lightest colors to the darkest colors. Tonal range creates a more visually interesting and exciting painting. Generally, tonal values are separated into light, medium, and dark tones, or you can think of them on a scale from 1 to 8, with 1 being white and 8 being black. The values from 2 to 7 are then ever darker shades of gray (Figure 1).
When planning a painting, it’s important to work out the tonal values so that the overall painting works (Video 1). In fact, some artists do a value study before beginning a painting by planning all values in a painting using a single color to work out the full range of shades. They then apply these values when mixing colors. The goal is to not only mix accurate colors, but also to mix colors of the proper value for that particular part of the painting.
EXPERT TIP: When working on a painting, try mixing colors and then placing the light, medium, and dark values next to each other to check that they work together.