Grayscale Values

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.