Stop right now.  If you tell yourself that you don’t like social media, trust me, it will show up on your posts and reels.  

Instead, why not try the easier route—change your mindset?

There are plenty of artists making fantastic art, but few of them can successfully make it into a career. A successful art business is at least 50% percent of business!

So why not think of it this way—creating art and business management are all part of making your amazing life! 

Business is just a different kind of creating process. Social media is just a different kind of creating process. You can do them begrudgingly, or you can learn to enjoy them!  

The tough part, to me, is numbers and taxes, so I sourced them out to someone good at it. I can then make space to do what I love.  

But social media is the thing you really need to learn to love. Because it’s an extension of who you are. No one else will have the same vision, emotion, and expression that exactly aligns with yours. Trust me, I have tried, but I learned the hard way. 

Nowadays, I learned to enjoy taking pictures and videos of my art and my creative process. You will need a little learning curve as to what to post, how to post, and how to edit your post. But it’s really fun!!

Follow my Instagram to see what I am doing, and send me a message if you have any questions :https://www.instagram.com/yingmclane/

The bottom line is, learn to like all aspects of your art business, embrace all of it, and eventually, you will be proud of it, just like seeing your baby grow into a little human who will love you and give back to you—you will feel all those hard days and long nights are all worth it!

Leave a comment or share with a friend if you like this post. 

Cheering you on!

Ying

The post <strong>Do you hate the business side of art?</strong> appeared first on Ying McLane.

That’s why when I was building my website, I asked my web designer to build a grid and grey scale tool for me. I made it a free tool for anyone to use. My mission is to help anyone interested in art be able to make good art and enjoy their inner creativity.

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

First, I am going to show you how to use this grid tool. 

Using a grid is a great way to help you with accurate drawings. And we all know how important a role drawing plays in a painting.

You can find artists’ videos on YouTube about how to hand draw a grid on the reference photo, then transfer the grid to canvas. As you can imagine, it’s a tedious process. 

But now, if you use the tool on my website, you can cut the process in half. 

Simply upload your photo, and print it out. You will then have a reference photo with a grid over it. See the pictures below.

You can then divide the length and width of your canvas into four sections, make a mark on each line, and then use a ruler to connect the dots.

One reminder: make sure the proportion/ratio of your canvas (length compare to width) is the same as your reference photo.

If you need a smaller grid, you can simply divide each section of the grid on your reference photo into two or three equal parts, then do the same for your canvas. 

This tool is equally useful in landscaping painting and portrait painting. Especially for beginners. 

Hope you enjoyed it. 

In my next post, I will show you how to use the grey scale.

Happy creating!

Ying

The post How to Use The Grid And Grey Scale to Improve Your Painting (part one) appeared first on Ying McLane.

The general rule is– the position of the sun in relationship with the clouds determines where the light and dark parts of the shadows are.  

In most cases, the sun will be above the clouds. 

So Imagine holding a cotton ball under a light. You want to paint three parts of this cotton ball:

1: the top part where the sunlight hits the cotton ball. It’s the lightest part of the ball. 

2: the middle part, the main body of the cotton ball.  It will be a middle tone.

3: the bottom part of the ball, where it is the darkest. 

If you paint a sunset, as I did in this painting of Fort Myers Pier in Florida,  the sunlight will hit the middle or lower part of the clouds. So the lower parts of the clouds will appear light in color, and the upper parts will be darker in color. You can also add some thin lines of bright color around the lower edges to show where the sunlight hit the clouds.

Remember: you are painting big shapes and values. Don’t try to paint every little detail you see. Or it will take away the overall feeling or mood you are trying to express in your painting.  

Happy painting!  

To learn more about the background of this painting, go to https://yingmclane.com/our-hurricane-ian-story-part-one/

Here is another good article about painting clouds: https://drawpaintacademy.com/clouds/#light-and-color

The post How to Paint Clouds appeared first on Ying McLane.