Silverpoint

Mass

Mass

The order of values in daylight

Sky lightest. Then flat ground, which faces the sky. Then upright walls. Then undersides and cast shadows. A plane's value depends on how squarely it faces the light.

In daylight the sky is the light source, so the sky is the lightest value in the scene (unless there is water reflecting it, or a white wall in direct sun). Flat planes face the sky and are next lightest: the ground, a road, the top of a wall. Upright planes glance the light and are halftone: walls, tree trunks, the sides of hedges. Planes that turn away from the sky, undersides, the inside of an arch, the ground under a tree, are darkest.

This order is so reliable that you can draw a convincing landscape from it alone. Beginners break it constantly: they shade the ground darker than the walls because the ground looks brown, and the drawing feels wrong in a way they cannot name. Value is not local colour. A dark brown road in sun is lighter than a white wall in shadow.

A pitched roof is the test case. It is tilted toward the sky, so it is usually lighter than the wall below it even when it is slate and the wall is limewash. Trust the plane, not the material.

From your kit

The whole kit →
  1. 1Pitt Matt 6B to 12B, on their sides mass is laid, not drawn; matt graphite reads as tone, not shine.
  2. 2Kneaded eraser, warmed, plus the clean Mono Zero the lights are lifted out of the mass, not left.
  3. 3Grafwood 4B, long point the one accent inside the mass: a trunk, a dark doorway.

Visuals

The order of values in daylight: the sky lightest, then the flat ground that faces it, then upright planes, then undersides and cast shadows1 · sky2 · roof (tilted to sky)3 · flat ground4 · lit wall6 · shadow wall7 · cast shadow9 · open doorwayA plane's value depends on how squarely it faces the light. The sky is the light.Flat planes face it: light. Uprights glance it: mid. Undersides turn away: dark.If your ground is darker than your walls on a sunny day, the drawing will feel wrong and you will not know why.
FigureSky, flat ground, lit wall, shadow wall, cast shadow, void. In that order.
Italian Landscape, Corot, c. 1865
Cleveland Museum of Art

Corot, Italian Landscape, c. 1865. etching.

Corot, Italian Landscape (etching). Sky left almost bare; the flat ground only lightly hatched; the trees, which are upright masses, dark.

The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Pitfalls

What

Ground darker than the walls on a sunny day.

Why

You drew the colour of the ground, not its value.

Fix

Squint. Compare the ground to the wall directly. Draw what the squint says.