Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
Thanks for reading Sketchy Travels! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Dear Sketchy Traveler,
I know we’ve spent the last couple of weeks talking about sketching techniques. Watercolor is the perfect next step to bring those sketches to life! Adding color enhances mood and atmosphere in a way that pen and pencil cannot do on their own. As we’ve been practicing, I realized that while I’ve used the terms value, shade, and tone in past posts, I’ve never really explained them. I thought this would be a great time as we get ready to add color to our sketches. Understanding what they are and how to create them helps get the color you want in your sketches.
Although they’re often used interchangeably, value and tone have subtle differences.
Value controls brightness, or how light or dark a color appears, whereas tone controls vibrancy, by adjusting intensity, makes a color more muted or vivid, making it pop.
Although value changes when you add white or black to a color, in watercolor white is typically not a pigment option. To increase brightness to a color, you will add water to the watercolor pigment and the white of the paper will bring brightness to the color.
Shading is a value technique of adding black to a pigment to make it darker.
With tone, add grey to the color to mute it. Again, this is not easy in watercolor and so, you can use the color opposite on the color wheel. For instance, to mute red, you will use a touch of green. To mute blue, you will use a touch of orange.
Watercolor has an added benefit of raising vibrancy that other mediums do not. This is through glazing, a layering of watercolor paint. See an example of this in the video below.
Although these terms are not essential, they will help you as you watch and understand artists in their lessons.
Value = brightness – think dimmer light switch. Tone = vibrancy – think color saturation slider.
For a deeper dive into value and tone, with examples and exercises, subscribe to my premium account.
Thanks for reading Sketchy Travels! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thanks for subscribing,
Thanks for reading Sketchy Travels! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sketchytravels.substack.com (https://sketchytravels.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
Thanks for reading Sketchy Travels! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Dear Sketchy Traveler,
I know we’ve spent the last couple of weeks talking about sketching techniques. Watercolor is the perfect next step to bring those sketches to life! Adding color enhances mood and atmosphere in a way that pen and pencil cannot do on their own. As we’ve been practicing, I realized that while I’ve used the terms value, shade, and tone in past posts, I’ve never really explained them. I thought this would be a great time as we get ready to add color to our sketches. Understanding what they are and how to create them helps get the color you want in your sketches.
Although they’re often used interchangeably, value and tone have subtle differences.
Value controls brightness, or how light or dark a color appears, whereas tone controls vibrancy, by adjusting intensity, makes a color more muted or vivid, making it pop.
Although value changes when you add white or black to a color, in watercolor white is typically not a pigment option. To increase brightness to a color, you will add water to the watercolor pigment and the white of the paper will bring brightness to the color.
Shading is a value technique of adding black to a pigment to make it darker.
With tone, add grey to the color to mute it. Again, this is not easy in watercolor and so, you can use the color opposite on the color wheel. For instance, to mute red, you will use a touch of green. To mute blue, you will use a touch of orange.
Watercolor has an added benefit of raising vibrancy that other mediums do not. This is through glazing, a layering of watercolor paint. See an example of this in the video below.
Although these terms are not essential, they will help you as you watch and understand artists in their lessons.
Value = brightness – think dimmer light switch. Tone = vibrancy – think color saturation slider.
For a deeper dive into value and tone, with examples and exercises, subscribe to my premium account.
Thanks for reading Sketchy Travels! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thanks for subscribing,
Thanks for reading Sketchy Travels! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sketchytravels.substack.com (https://sketchytravels.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
