A separate flat value and/or color is used for as many of the following as the artist chooses: highlights, lights, medium values, medium-dark values, and dark values. The artist might choose to break these values down into even subtler values. The edge that is created at the border between each of the flat values can be simplified into flowing curves or angled lines, or the edges can be highly complex. The edge between these planes can be blurred or outlined in any number of ways (see Edges on page 108.)

Values as flat shapes can also be used in purely abstract works that create the illusion of a three-dimensional abstraction.

Depicting values as flat shapes can lend a graphic feeling to a work of art, alluding to posters or block prints.

Featured: The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai.