Techniques For Achieving Atmospheric Perspective In Digital Paintings

Techniques For Achieving Atmospheric Perspective In Digital Paintings – The more you know about how atmosphere affects your view of the landscape, the more you will be able to see those effects when you look at the landscape (even when they are subtle) and therefore add depth to your painting when you paint. them on purpose. Atmospheric perspective in painting refers to the increasing atmospheric effect of the dominant scene on objects as they recede.

Artists can create a sense of atmospheric perspective in a landscape using several visual tools: value, chroma and color temperature, edges, and texture. First of all, the value. As subjects move further away, more atmospheric haze appears between the viewer and the subject, making shadows appear noticeably lighter. Light patterns also appear different, with less contrast and sometimes brighter depending on weather conditions and light source. Value is the most important part of creating atmosphere in a landscape, as even a grayscale sketch or painting can be very atmospheric if distant objects move further away due to changes in value.

Techniques For Achieving Atmospheric Perspective In Digital Paintings

The second thing that changes with the perspective of the atmosphere is the color: its color and its temperature. Under certain conditions, atmospheric haze causes the temperature of the landscape to decrease or become bluer. In a wooded, less polluted area, on a clear or slightly foggy day, you will see the distant mountains take on a lighter, brighter blue color. That’s because trees and other vegetation release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) along with oxygen when they breathe, and VOCs create vapors that scatter blue light from the sky.

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Kathleen Hudson, Early Morning at Cumberland Falls, 2014, oil on linen, 14 x 11 inches, private collection, plein air

But the elusive landscape is not always beautiful, blue. It depends on the time of day and the location of the light source. At dusk or dawn, fog and vapor reflect light from the sky equally, meaning they will take on more color than the dominant sky color at that time.

In more polluted conditions, closer to cities, the farther parts of the landscape are often less colorful (greyer) than the foreground, where you’ll see brighter colors and greater contrast. This is because polluting particles absorb light instead of reflecting it like VOCs do. The lower color rule of thumb can also be applied in heavy fog and overcast conditions: when the light is blocked, the local color is lighter in the foreground but more obscured by the distance.

A final way to add more atmospheric depth to your painting is to consider edges and texture. The edges become softer as they become more obscured by the fog in the distance. You can do this in your work, such as softening the horizon, even if when you look at it you see a harder line. (I also do this in seascapes where I can see a clear line on the horizon because the softer edge causes the horizon to recede.) You can soften the edges of trees and other landscape elements and soften their shapes as they recede.

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Texture is also a useful tool for creating depth. More textures in the foreground will bring it closer to the viewer; it’s also a great way to create interest in the foreground without changing the values ​​so much that they distract from the main area. Just as edges soften with distance, the smoother or subtler texture of distant objects adds depth to the landscape.

If you master these visual tools, you can add a powerful sense of atmospheric depth to your paintings. But remember that the atmosphere of a particular landscape cannot be welded to rules, so keep an eye out for changes in value and color as you sketch and draw from life. The temperature and color change depend particularly on light, weather conditions and the time of day. They will change from place to place and season to season.

Keep in mind that it is these subtle changes that are hardest for the camera to capture, and this is where your knowledge and observation will come in especially handy in the studio. The habit of observing, taking notes and painting in situ will help you remember the unique atmosphere of the landscape.

And even better, if you practice these things often, you’ll become a true student of the landscape: as you improve your observation skills, your sense of wonder will increase – and your paintings will truly tell that story.

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Kathleen Hudson, Evening Glow, Bare Rocks and Annisquam Lighthouse, 2017, oil on linen panel, 12 x 24 inches, available from the artist, plein air

About the Author: Kathleen B. Hudson is a nationally recognized artist from Lexington, California and is featured in the PaintTube.TV video tutorial Creating Drama in Landscapes. His painting Bright Morning, Timberline Falls won the Grand Prix in 2019. outdoors. Atmospheric Perspective: 3 Essential Elements for Creating a Convincing Sense of Depth and Mood in Your Landscape Paintings

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Atmospheric perspective refers to the effect of the atmosphere on the appearance of objects seen from a distance. Objects further away become less sharp and their color value, saturation and hue change. As an artist, you can enhance the atmosphere and feel of your work by exaggerating these effects in your painting. This creates a greater illusion of depth and distance and helps create the atmosphere and feel of the landscape. When you paint landscapes, this mood and feeling are an essential part of visual poetry. Atmospheric perspective is also called aerial perspective.

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There are two types of perspective that an artist can use to create a sense of depth and distance in a painting: atmospheric perspective and linear perspective. Atmospheric perspective refers to how the atmosphere affects the color of things we see. Linear perspective, on the other hand, refers to the way distance affects the shape of objects, making them appear smaller as they move further away.

In the photo above you can see that the hills below are gradually becoming lighter and grey. The intense reds and oranges of the rocks fade into the distant hills. These effects are due to atmospheric perspective effects.

In this painting of a street in Venice, you can see how I used grayer colors for the distant buildings compared to the much richer colors I used for the foreground figures.

These foreground figures are painted in bright, high-saturation colors. These reds and purples are used straight from the tube with very little mixing.

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Buildings in the distance are painted in low-saturation gray. Moisture in the atmosphere made these buildings grayer. You can compare these grays to the richer browns used in street buildings.

A second effect of atmospheric perspective concerns the value of objects. The value of the most distant objects approaches the value of the sky on the horizon. This means that object values ​​will light up as much as possible during daylight hours. In the night sky, objects further away will darken and approach the value of the dark night sky.

In the foreground you see darker values ​​and there is more contrast between the light and dark shapes.

The third change you see in objects as they move away from you is their hue, or color. Objects change color as they move across the spectrum or around the color wheel. If we consider the three primary colors: red, yellow and blue, each of them emerges from the landscape at a different distance. The first color to fall is yellow, then red and finally blue.

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In this image, bright oranges, pinks, and yellow-greens are visible in the foreground. These colors give way to purplish red in the middle distance as the yellow hue fades from the landscape. Finally, in the distance, the red violets become purple blues and blues as the red hue disappears from the colors of the landscape.

Here you can see systematic color changes in areas closer to you versus further away.

While distant objects are generally cooler and bluer in color, sunrise and sunset are an exception. At this time of day, the background color is more pink. Since the color of farther objects tends to match the color of the background, these mountains will also appear more pink than blue.

Atmospheric perspective concepts have a long history. It was used in ancient Roman frescoes. For example, there are two frescoes created in the 1930s.

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In this garden room mural at Villa Livia in Prima Porta in Italy, you can see warm greens in the foreground and cooler blues in the background.

You can see the changes in this mural