How strong is your painting. You think it looks great, or you are having problems with it? Either way, the test is how it stands up as black and white.

Use any of these tools, and you will probably find your answer: Notan, value studies in charcoal or black markers, iphone's Value Viewer app, Gray Scale & Value Finder by The Color Wheel Company, Edgmon Art's red plastic viewer.

Contributors to the blog of Oil Painters of America write really good articles, whatever medium you use. Rich Nelson writes The Value of Value, with this little excerpt: 

• It’s quite a revelation. I will wager that nearly any painting that you love will look good in black and white. The values are like a great skeleton on which the painting hangs. And sadly the inverse is also true; when a painting isn’t rocking your world you’ll often find that it doesn’t hold up well in grayscale either.
  

Tap the link to read the full article and see examples. Worth the time.

Humor, interesting stories and a great demo by Cheng Lian highlighted our March meeting. His beautifully costumed model was perfect. In the afternoon workshop, he cautioned many of us who grew up with the dark to light theory that our values were "too dark" or "too warm."  Cheng emphasized keeping the value planes of the face to round it, but also to have the values gently blend together rather than having an abrupt change or too much difference in color.

Lots more photos of the afternoon workshop on our Facebook page, courtesy of Cheryl Holmes.