If you haven't read the above post read it first. Posted twice in one day.
My own life has proven to me the 10.000 hour belief is bad advice. I went from starting the guitar to playing jazz in three years. I would have had to play 9+ hours a day. It's not the time. It's the effort that counts.
Explanation of 'color value'. The value of a color is how light or dark the color is. Viewing a photo in black and white will show the values of each color in that photo.
All three exercises. Yep, three. The first one you should get good at is the black and white nine step gray scale. I got this off the web. Not sure if the youtube channel I got from is the original creator. Need to give credit so the link below is to the youtube video that started all of this. This exercise is the same as the Psycho Scale Exercise but in black and white only. Get good at this before starting the color exercises. Great way to start training your eyes to see value.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WowABJEpm1c An explanation of the two exercises I came up with and the rules to follow. Because they're mine I get to name them. Psycho is kind of short for psychedelic. And very close to how your going to feel hours into these exercises. You will need a camera or phone camera that can be set on gray scale to do these exercises.
Psycho squares. Three colors of matching value. Goal. To mix thee different colors with matching values. When viewed in gray scale they appear as one shade of gray.
Any three different colors. As light or dark as you want to make them. First mix your main color. Then mix second color and judge by eye if it's value is the same as your first. Check this with your camera on gray scale. If the two values don't match judge them again with your eyes and try to see the difference in value. Change the second mixed color according to difference and judge it by eye again. Then with the camera. Repeat these steps until you get the first two colors right. Then mix a third and repeat the process all over again. Get to the point where you can mix two of the three right judging with your eyes and all three extremely close in value the first time before starting on the second exercise.
Some encouragement. When I started this I would spend twenty or more minutes judging and remixing the second color alone. Why do this? Every artist I've seen on Youtube that gets thousands for each painting says the very same thing. "Value is more important than color. " Seeing the value instead of the color is that important.
Psycho Scale Exercise.
Make a nine step scale from the dark to light using mixed colors. Important. Before you do either of these exercises with color get good at this exercise using only black and white paint. The rules and procedure are basically the same
This exercise uses three different scales. A three spot, five spot and nine spot scale. Each of these scales is depended on the colors you mix for the smaller scale before it. Mix a different color for each square. An example. From dark to light. Red, blue yellow, green, orange, purple, gray, yellow, green. Never use the same color next to each other. Mix each color individually. Never use two of your mixed colors to make an in-between color.
Start my marking out all three scales. I keep mine around a half inch square for each color spot.
Starting with the tree spot. Mix your darkest color. Now mix the lightest. Pint the darkest color in the first square of each scale. Paint the lightest color in the last square of each scale. Now mix a new color that, to your eyes is directly in the middle of the values of the dark and light color. Try your best to get this right by eye alone. Now use your camera to judge your results. If you are positive this value is directly in the middle of the other two paint it in the middle square of the three spot. The third square in the five spot and the fifth in the nine spot.
The five spot.
The idea is to mix the two remaining values. Each one directly in the middle of the values of the ones around them. First judging by eye and then with the camera. You will instantly know if this exercise is a failure. All three scales depend solely on the middle color of the first three. The exercise is a failure if all five values in the fiver spot are not evenly spaced when viewed in gray scale. Do not go past this until you get this extremely close or right without using the camera to judge. OK, you can go ahead and fill out what is possible in the nine spot for practice.
The nine spot.
Paint the value in the second square of the five spot into the third square of the nine spot. The value on the fourth square goes into the seventh slot of the nine slot square. Mix the remaining colors. Use the camera to help at first. But by this time you should be good enough at seeing values to get it very close by eye.
Is this possible to do? Yes it is. Why put this much effort into it? Because your art is worth it. Spending perhaps a hundred hours or more on this is far better than nine thousand on slop. Learning color theory, contrast, composition and all the rest are easily found on the web. All these techniques are far easier to put into practice once you learn to see values. If value is more important than caller than this skill should be learned first.
Something that will also help. Once you got good at a nine spot black and white value scale try painting in black and white. Base your exercise on something in full color. Do this exercise without viewing the photo/object in black and white. Then judge your results by viewing your work and what you based it on in black and white.
Something else that will help speed up your progress. Do not keep any of your exercises. Do not look back at them. Do not compare what you do now to then. We all justify our actions. Good and bad. It's automatic. It will put the brakes on you getting better. Remember what you did right and how you got there. Thinking about what you did right and the actions you took to get there is how you train your brain. And it's scientifically proven to be just as effective as doing the actions.