The quiet conversation is comprised of areas in your painting that are close in value and are relatively more subtle and delicate. The quiet conversation is what you see when you’re standing right in front of your painting. The quiet conversations tend to disappear when you view the work from across the room. From that distance, you will only see the higher contrast areas or shapes in your art (the loud conversation). The quiet conversations are less noticeable, especially from a distance because the shapes or areas that make up the quiet conversation lack contrast, and are close in value.

In the diagram above, the three subtle elements on the right side create a quiet conversation. On the left side, the three high contrast elements are not considered part of the quiet conversation – they are part of the loud conversation.

We want to have both a loud conversation and a quiet conversation happening in our art. Grouping your values is a great way to clarify. When we organize our values to keep our dark values grouped together with similar darks, and our light values grouped together with similar lights, we can clearly see both conversations. 

Those conversations are opposites and that is why they can create so much interest when seen together. “Quiet” and “Loud” when seen together enhance each other.