Tone in art is one of the most important tools for an artist

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

When we start learning to draw with a pencil or paint, it seems to us that an important quality for an artist is a sense of color, volume, and finally imagination! Such a concept as tone is often overlooked, especially by beginners and those who learn to draw without a teacher. They try to draw or draw beautifully, which makes the drawings look like bad photographs.

The tonal solution of the picture is no less important than the color one, and in a black and white image it is the main one. What is tone in fine arts?

General information

What is tone in art, in a nutshell? Tone is the concept of the lightness of an object and color (paint). Sometimes the term "aperture" is used, which is equivalent to the concept of "tone". There are usually several objects in the artist's picture, and all of them are solved in tone. If the artist has managed to correctly convey the tonal relationships of objects, then the work will acquire liveliness and give the viewer the impression of truthfulness, it will be pleasing to the eye.

Tone in art is the power of light acting on objects. Every subject in the picture is more or less illuminated. Each object in the picture has its own color. Colors are usually easy to name and remember. Rememberthe tone is much more complex. It depends on changing light, the shape of the subject, and cannot be defined as precisely as color.

This is the complexity of the term tone. We tend to think that a white object is lighter than a blue or black object. Then how is a white cloth actually darker in the shade than a black one in the light?

For an artist, seeing and feeling tone is a very difficult task. Often a master who has a good sense of color sees the tone worse, and, conversely, a master who feels the tone is not a talented colorist.

In a contour drawing, the tone is set by the thickness of the pencil line or its texture.

The right tone in the right place

To understand the tone of an object, you need to compare it with neighboring ones, look at it, squinting your eyes. The tone is clearly visible in black and white photographs.

To become a competent artist, you need to know and observe the laws of tone and tonal relationships and, of course, understand the term tone, definition in art. The ability to show tonal relationships is called "taking relationships", i.e. correctly show the strength of the illumination of the depicted objects.

Light shows and builds form: the most convex areas of the subject are more illuminated, others less so. This is how light helps the artist to mold the form, to understand it. From the term "take relations" follows the rule of "touches" - how objects interact with each other. The artist must observe how the depicted object comes into contact withneighboring things: somewhere it will turn out to be darker than the background, somewhere it will stand out against a dark background, somewhere the tonal relations will become so close that the two objects seem to begin to dissolve into each other. From these rules, painting is born.

The right tone in the right place - this is how the famous artist Ilya Repin designated the secret of his success in the pictorial field.

What is tone made of?

Tone in art is a chain of components. The light surface of an object contains light, penumbra and glare, and the unlit surface contains shadow and reflex. Each of the components should have its own tone. The glare cannot be darker than the light, and the shadow cannot be lighter than the penumbra. If these rules of "relations" are not observed, the depicted object will turn out to be crumpled and incomprehensible in structure. The artist must learn to see the object as a whole, but at the same time understand its design, structure and be aware of how the object is influenced by other things surrounding it. A good artist will not paint the subject in one color. He will need to show neighboring things that affect the subject. And all this without going beyond the tone ratios.

Tone Rules

Objects in the foreground are depicted with more contrast in tone. Objects located in the depth of the picture have closer tones. So the artist can convey the perspective, the depth of the picture, the volume.

To make fewer mistakes in the image of the tone, it is important to properly position your work - canvas or sheet of paper. It is undesirable to illuminate the picture too much - inas a result, all objects will be too dark. If you work in low light conditions, then the work will be too light and with sharp touches. It is important to observe your work "from the outside". To do this, you need to periodically stop drawing and step aside, give your eyes a rest, and also give yourself the opportunity to look at the work from afar.

Teaching tone

Most art educators pay a lot of attention to questions of tone. The correct understanding of the term "tone" is the basis of artistic literacy. Tone in art is not shading, not obscuring the subject, not blind copying of dark and light places. The use of tone allows the artist to tell the viewer what kind of light affects the object, to make the thing alive for perception, to show and analyze its shape and structure. Blind blackening of dark spots and highlighting of light ones makes the work chaotic and betrays the unprofessionalism of the artist.

Tone helps the artist show the design of the object, its color (even in black and white) and surface texture.

How to work tone?

In order to work correctly with tone, it is necessary to analyze the initial data of nature. How tone is used in art (examples):

• show where the light source is in relation to the viewer;
• what is the strength and nature of the lighting - strong light or diffused, etc.;
• aerial perspective - how far objects are from each other;
• how is it distributedlight and shadows on flat and / or rounded objects, at what angle are different planes to the light source;
• where is the center of illumination - one of the objects can be illuminated more actively, others - less and obey the first one;
• how details obey the center of illumination.

Relations between tone and paint, its darkness or lightness - color always obeys the laws of tone, a dark color should not be darkened, but its tone and relations with neighboring objects must be determined. Tone in art is incredibly important. According to the artist D. N. Kardovsky, painting - color taken in tone.