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.

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.