How to Gray Your Color Down (Without Shifting Values) with Todd M. Casey
There’s something special about Todd. M Casey’s (Ep.24) palette. But it’s not the reds, yellows and blues that will surprise you. It’s the grays and what they do to keep his value mixing as accurate as possible.
These aren’t just any grays. Casey has chosen them because they match the value of his colors perfectly.
Put it to Practice:
When you desaturate color you are left with black, white, and grays. We give each of those a number, like 30%, 50% or 70% gray.
But your tubes- with all their saturated glory- still have those numbers. For example, Cadmium Red, is often right around 50% on the value scale.
You can buy grays with particular values attached to them.
And this is exactly what Casey does. He has specific grays that he knows will match specific tubes of paint.
So for example, if he wants to gray down his cadmium red, he just grabs his 50% gray. This will gray down his red without shifting the value up or down.
You can absolutely do this too. You’ll first need to know the value of your pigments so that you can match them with a particular percentage gray.