In last week’s post, I showed you how to use a grid for painting. I hope you found it helpful.

Just in case you missed it, you can access my grid and grey scale tool here.

https://yingmclane.com/image-converter/

Today I will show you how to use the greyscale on my website to find accurate values.

What is value? Simply put, it’s how light or dark a color is. Here is a simple grey-scale tool you can find on Amazon. 

Value is critical in a realistic painting. If your value is incorrect, your artwork will look flat and cartoonish.  

There are four essential elements in a figurative painting:

Drawing

Value

Composition

Color

When you use greyscale to look at, check, or start a painting, you only need to deal with drawing, value, and composition. Not color yet. So you can focus on getting the fundamentals down before moving on to colors.

To judge the value before starting a painting:

Before I developed the grey scale tool on my website, I used tinted glass and squinted my eyes to judge my painting subject’s value. Now I don’t need to!

To compare the value with my reference photo:

I have taken a picture of my painting in progress, changed the color of it and the reference photo to black and white in my phone”s editing tool, and compared the two. Now I simply upload my picture to see the comparison! like this:

To start an underpainting:

Many artists, including myself, have used the underpainting method. That is basically painting a value scale using colors like grey, raw umber, etc. Now using the grey scale too on my website, it’s so easy to start an underpainting!

I hope this guide will help you along your art journey, friend.

To know more about the four essential elements in art, watch my free mini-course here.

https://yingmclane.com/7-insider-tips/

Cheering you on

Ying

The post <strong>How to Use the Grey Scale to Improve Your Painting (part two)</strong> appeared first on Ying McLane.

Hurricane Ian devastated my hometown in South West Florida. I felt led by the Spirit to do a series of paintings of the iconic landscapes in those towns for auction to benefit hurricane relief.

First, I did some google image searches. This photo of the Sanibel Island Lighthouse caught my eye. I felt my creative sparkle flying. So the following day, after dropping my children off at school, I went straight to my studio and started painting. 

Here is my painting process:

1 I used the direct painting method. That is, I drew an outline putting down the basic placements of the elements, then I painted directly on the canvas.

I chose the 30 inches by 40 inches canvas because I felt only a larger-sized ground could express the breathtaking beauty of the lighthouse and the island.

2 I picked out several shades of blue. I put down a thin layer of the blue sky first, then worked my way down to the house and beach scene. 

3 After the first acrylic base coat of the background sky dried (acrylic paints dry fast), I put down the second layer with more attention to detail. 

4 Using a ruler, I painted the lighthouse”s metal structure. I made sure the perspective was accurate. 

5 Time to paint the foreground, and that’s the fun part. I love using loose strokes to paint the sand, grasses, and palm tree leaves. The process was exhilarating!

6 The last layer added highlights, like the orange sunlight on the clouds, with oil paint. Oil paint is more saturated and intense than acrylic paint, so it is perfect for doing those highlights in this painting. 

I finished the whole painting just in time to pick my children up from school.  Sometimes with the right frame of mind plus a little luck, you will get the best workflow in your creative process. 

If you need some help with landscape painting, try my free tool — grid and greyscale, on my website.  It will help you with composition and finding the accurate value of your reference photo.

Just click here https://yingmclane.com/image-converter/

See you soon!

Ying

www.yingmclane.com

The post How I Painted This Big Canvas in One Day appeared first on Ying McLane.