Making a Value Strip

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In Classical Drawing we use a range of values to convey the volume of a form.
Here we are using 9 values, from 1 to 9, where 1 is the white of the paper, and 9 is the blackest black we can achieve with our medium. 
This means that if we use white paper, or cream coloured paper, or grey paper, that #1 value will vary.  It also means that the medium we are using will determine what our #9 value will be.  If we are using 2B pencils as our darkest pencil, our #9 value can’t get quite as dark as carbon pencil, or charcoal or paint or even computer printer ink.

It’s a very valuable exercise to make our own value strip. Some of the  benefits of making our own value strip are:
– we become familiar with which pencils to use
– we learn how much pencil pressure to apply
– we understand how many passes we can employ
– we exercise our pencil dexterity and become more in control of our drawing 
Here are the steps.
1.    draw on a piece of paper a strip consisting of 9 square each of ¾”, leaving a ¼” gap between the squares.
2.    Number them 1-9
3.    First work on the #9 square. Lay down many layers of 2B with some pressure on the point.  You want this to get really black.
4.    Next we will work on the number 5 square which is exactly half-way between #1 and #9.  Please check your values against these examples or the value strips given to you in class.
5.    After this we should work on number 3, which is exactly half-way between #5 and # 1.
6.    Then we focus on square number 7, which is exactly half-way between #5 and #9.
7.    Then we fill in the remaining squares that will each be respectively between the adjoining 2 values.
If you go over the edges of the squares with laying in the tones, at the end, we can use our eraser to clean up the edges.
Lastly we should spray the finished value strip, with correct values, and cut this out to have on our drawing board for future drawings.
© Mandy Boursicot 2013