[Peggy Baumgaertner]

In this second painting, much more complicated, you can really see the beauty of this principle. The hair and skin of the figures, the man's shirt, the woman's dress, the dog, are all light value. The man's coat, the tree, his back leg, are all middle value. The man's pants, the tree behind his head, and the grass he is walking on are all the dark value.

This is the key factor. Look at the woman's dress. There is a lot of information there, folds, and detail, detail in her hair. There are dark light values, light light values, but no matter how dark the values in her dress are, they never cross the line and become as dark as the lightest middle values.

Look at the middle values of the man's coat. Again, there is a lot of detail in the coat, buttons, folds, but no matter how light the lighted middle value gets, it is still darker than the darkest light value, and the darkest middle value is still lighter than the lightest dark value.

This is what I mean by three value massing. Controlling the values into light, middle and dark values, but within those three values, you have infinite value and color choices, as long as you do not cross over into the other two values. I think this is something that every artist knew until the 20th century, and then it was forgotten. We were not taught this very basic, very elementary principle.

BTW, Mike, this is where you get to play with composition. I contend that composition is not about line, but about value massing. (Phew...I think this is enough for now).

Oh! On your question about color correction without changing value, what I mean by this is you can put any color within a value mass, as long as the color doesn't cross the line and move into a different value.

I see this frequently in the postings on this site. On the middle value shadow on the side of the face, for instance, the reflected light onto the shadow will go too light, will cross the value line and become a light value. You need to be ever vigilant that when correcting for color into a value mass, to not cross over into a different value.