A Quick Value Check

There's nothing like having a brand new project to start.  My favorite part of the process is pinning the pattern to my design wall and getting to put those first splashes of fabric color up!

As always, I start with the most obvious and easiest choices first - the trees.  I have a large tree in the foreground, a few trees in the middle and several smaller trees in the distance.  Because of this, I want to keep the principal of atmospheric perspective in mind and keep those trees in the foreground a darker value and the trees in the far distant part of the landscape a lighter color in value.  I also want to show a little more shadow detail in the largest tree in the foreground. 

To make sure I achieve all this,  I've taken all my possible tree fabrics and and arranged them by value as you can see above.  Some of the fabrics with the lightest value will be perfect sunlit accents on my largest tree in the foreground.  And, while it may be difficult to see in my photo, I can make sure that the largest tree in the foreground consists of my darkest value brown.  I can also make sure that the trees gradually get lighter in value as they recede in the landscape by having those fabrics side by side from the start and sorted by value.