While I was in Canada a couple of weeks back I had a great revelation when it came to teaching total beginners about design and value patterns. I was teaching my cousin and other family members what to look for when viewing ones photographs and to see if the photo has a good design.
When looking for a good designed pattern you need to
squint your eyes and look at the photo and by squinting it turns a colored image into more of a black and white photo. Eliminating the colors lets you see the large value pattern.
A way that is even more effective is to take a photo app or program and turn the colored image black and white
and then posterize it into a black and white pattern. Do not use 3 tones of value, just 2, black and white.
Middle grey tones can be part of the light
or the darks so it doesn't help to have them in the posterized image when figuring out the black and white pattern.
Below you can see a colored city scene, I now want you to squint your eyes and see if you can eliminate the colors from the image and while still squinting look down at the posterized image to see if you can't make them both look like the black and white posterized photo.
This is a great exercise in learning how to squint
at a photo and seeing the big black and white posterized pattern of your photographs. It even works if you are plein-air painting, just look at the entire outdoor scene that you are thinking about painting and then look at it with squinted eyes to eliminate the colors, letting you see if there is a nice simple pattern to paint.
Try to keep the pattern simple, the more complex and scattered the black and white patterns the harder it will be to make the painting
work and have a nice design. Think about the yin and yang symbol, it's the simplest design but so effective as a simple design.
Happy Squinting
David