Depth is important when you paint a big scale landscape. But when it comes to the individual object, you need value to show the form of the object to make it 3-dimensional and believable.
We are able to see form of the things around us because of the lighting. So the value in this case will help to establish the light and the dark of on the object. From buildings in the city, cars on the street, a person wearing a shirt under the sun, to the nose and the cheeks on that person's face, value plays a huge role to help the viewers read the forms. Painting light with value will enable your viewer to tell which way the surface of the object is facing. In the future I will go over with you how to paint different type of shadow. Now let's look at some examples:
Value is powerful, and it definitely worth our attention and effort to study and practice. There are many people who get distracted by all the techniques and tricks that the masters use, but they skim on the fundamentals that makes a painting great in the first place. I will end this week's post with a digital painting by artist Robh Ruppel. If you look at these paintings in a distance, they look like photos. But if you look closely, they are just value shapes. That's how powerful value is.