A good tonal range in any painting is very important. A narrow tonal range means that the viewer’s eye isn’t led around the painting and the picture can end up looking quite bland with a weak composition. A strong tonal range gives structure and holds a painting together. When solving problems in our paintings we often conclude that we need to alter a colour in a painting to make the picture work, when, in fact, we should be considering the appropriate lightness or darkness of the colour. Colour and value need to be considered together. By this I mean that every colour has a specific value.
This is more complicated in watercolour painting. We may begin with a colour, such as Winsor violet, which is very dark,
